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THE HUMANISM OF COLUCCIO SALUTATI BY | BERTHOLD L. ULLMAN

/\ IN

EDITRICE ANTENORE - PADOVA MCMLXAIll

Tutti 1 diritti riservati ©) COPYRIGHT BY EDITRICE ANTENORE - PADOVA PRINTED IN ITALY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABULA GRATULATORIA Ix

LIsT OF PLATES XIII

PREFACE XV I. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF COLUCCIO SALUTATI 3

II. SaLrutTati’s WorKS 19 III. HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM IN SALUTATI 39

IV. THe DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE $3 V. SALUTATI’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS 73

| VI. SALUTATI’S PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION 85

VII. COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR 95

VIII. Cotuccio’s INFLUENCE 117

IX. Coruccio’s LIBRARY 129 X. Coxruccio’s Usk of HIS Books 213 XI. Coxruccio’s BOOKS AND THEIR SCRIBES 263

INDEX OF NAMES 283

INDEX OF MANUSCRIPTS 293

.

Anno vertente MCMLXII Berthold L. Ullman ita feliciter octogesimum explet annum, ut, qua doctrinae ubertate, qua ingeni viriditate viget, in variis disciplinis,

quodam tamen vinculo inter se coniunctis, versetur, antiquae et mediae aetatis

philologia, paleographia, humanistarum historia. Qua de re cum iam socius honoris causa Academiae Americanae Mediaevalis et Academiae Americanae artium ac scientiarum esset creatus, nuper etiam Academiae Patavinae scientiarum, litterarum artiumque, demum a.d. X Kal. Dec. laurea honoris causa apud Studium Patavinum donatus est. Hoc ipso anno, amicis et sodaliciis tanto viro honorando incumbentibus, B.L. Ull-

man opus conficit tot vigiliis lucubratum, tot fructus habiturum, ut optimo iure in eo inscribendo veterem illum librum Petri Nolhac de Petrarca ausus sit respicere et repetere: The Humanism of Coluccio Salutati. Quo opere primo Coluci vitam com-

ponit, scripta proponit, fortunam pervestigat; deinde ipsius ingenium et industriam

effingit: qui, ut Petrarca, in antiquae et novae aetatis confinio positus, is philologus , evasit ut, quomodo Tifernum recte scriberetur, viginti Gregori Magni codicibus adhibitis, tandem inscriptione nisus statuerit; qui « magnus praeco » veterum scripto-

rum habitus est idemque rei publicae et philosophiae operam dedit nec minus divina quam humana coluit; qui saeculo XV ineunte princeps et auctor fuit eas res novandi

in disciplinae ratione, in rhetorica, in litteris, quibus rebus Europae humanior aetas illuxit. Postremo, quod caput totius libri videtur, summo labore et diligentia quae

fuerit Coluci bibliotheca perquirit, aequalium ditissima, cuius quidem undecim et centum codices nunc demum Ullman recenset et describit; enumerat praeterea atque explorat aliquot codices amissos quidem, sed in veteres indices relatos, denique Coluci opera archetypa, nec non librum quendam ‘De origine civitatis Florentiae

a Philippo Villani, Coluci amico, exaratum et ab ipso emendatum. Multae tabulae accedunt, non ornamenti sed monumenti causa selectae, quae non

nihil conferunt ad historiam textuum ac scripturarum promovendam, ad Coluci scribendi rationem per tam longum vitae spatium persequendam, ad eius librariorum manus internoscendas. Nemo non aliquid lucri faciet: discet philologus quo-

modo Florentiae Coluci temporibus Latini auctores ad novam vitam revocati et restituti, Graeci recuperari et intelligi coepti sint; videbit paleographus Colucio fa-

vente novam scripturam ortam esse; sentiet renatae humanitatis cultor suam disciplinam singulari incremento auctam esse. Typographus autem id egit, ut et tabulis et typis elegantiam quam praestantissimus quisque illius aetatis artifex consecutus erat aemularetur.

TABULA GRATULATORIA

ACCADEMIA PATAVINA DI SCIENZE, LET- BIBLIOTHEQUE CANTONALB ET UNI-

TERE ED ARTI, Padova VERSITAIRE, Fribourg RIno AVESANI, Scrittore della Biblioteca © BIBLIOTHEQUE DE L’ UNIVERSITE, Louvain

Apostolica Vaticana, Citta del Vati- | GrusEpPE BILLANOVICH, Universita Cat-

cano tolica del S. Cuore, Milano

ARNOLD Bank, College of Fine Arts, | GuIDO BILLANOVICH, Padova

Carnegie Institute of Technology, B. BLACKWELL, Oxford

Pittsburg, Pa. EpirH BOrcer, Buchhandlung, Koln-

RosERT J. BARNETT, JR., Milano Lindenthal

«Breui0», Service de Librairie, Louvain BoTTEeca D’ERASMO, Torino BIBLIOTECA APOSTOLICA VATICANA, Cit- VITTORE BRANCA, Universita, Padova

ta del Vaticano Bruce BrasweELt, Scholarly Books,

BIBLIOTECA CANTONALE, Lugano Toronto | BIBLIOTECA Crvica, Padova BROTHERTON Liprary, University, BIBLIOTECA COMUNALE, Treviso Leeds BIBLIOTECA DELLE FACOLTA D1 LETTERE- T.J. BROWN AND Mprs., King’s Col-

FIrosoFiIA BE MAGISTERO, Universita, lege, London

Cagliari Brown University Liprary, Provi-

BIBLIOTECA DELLA FACOLTA DI LETTERE, dence, R. I.

CATTEDRA DI LETTERATURA ITALIANA, Das BUCHERKABINETT GuIDO PRESSLER,

Universita, Catania Wiesbaden

BIBLIOTECA DELLA FACOLTA D1 LETTERE, Curt F. BUHLER, Keeper of Printed

Universita, Milano Books, Pierpont Morgan Library,

BIBLIOTECA GOVERNATIVA, Cremona New York, N. Y.

BIBLIOTECA DELL’IstrITUTO UNIVERSITA- AUGUSTO CAMPANA, Universita, Ur-

RIO DI ECONOMIA E COMMERCIO E DI bino LINGUR E LETTERATURB STRANIERE, CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA LI-

Venezia BRARIES, Washington, D.C.

BIBLIOTECA DELL’IstrrUTO UNIVERSITA- CENTRO DI DOCUMENTAZIONE, ISTITUTO

RIO DI MAGISTERO, Genova PER LE SCIENZE ReEticiose, Bologna BIBLIOTECA MALATESTIANA, Cesena CuIswick Book SHop, New York, BipuioTECA MeEpICcEA LAURENZIANA, N.Y.

Firenze Tu. CHRISTIANSEN, Buchhandlung,

BIBLIOTECA DEL MONUMENTO NAzio- Hamburg-Altona

NALE, Montecassino Lucia A. Crappont, Milano

; Lastra a Signa (Firenze)

BIBLIOTECA DEL MONUMENTO NAZIO- COMMISSIONARIA LIBRI BaRTOLUCCI,

NALE, Praglia TAMMARO Dk Marinis, Firenze

Venezia . London

BIBLIOTECA NAZIONALE DI SAN MARCO, Carto Dionisortt, Bedford College, , BIBLIOTECA DEL POPOLO, Trieste ALFRED FAIRBANK, Hove, Sussex BIBLIOTECA RICCARDIANA, Firenze GIANFRANCO FOLENA, Universita, PaBIBLIOTECA DEL SEMINARIO VESCOVILE, dova

Padova EDUARD FRAENKEL, Corpus Christi Col-

BIBLIOTECA UNIVERSITARIA, Padova lege, Oxford BIBLIOTECA VALLICELLIANA, Roma GINo FRANCESCHINI, Universita, Urbino

x TABULA GRATULATORIA EucEnIo Garin, Universita, Firenze LABORATOIRE DE RECHERCHES HIsTO-

Myron P. Grrmorg, Harvard Univer- RIQUES, Faculté des Lettres, Bor-

sity, Cambridge, Mass. deaux

GIORNALE STORICO DELLA LETTERATURA J. A. O. Larsen, University of Missou-

ITALIANA, Torino ri, Columbia, Mo.

Viro R. GrusTINIANI, Universitat, Frei- _Lm1an B. Lawizr, University of Iowa,

burg i. Br. Iowa City, Iowa ,

Goreporcs UNIVERSITETSBIBLIOTEK, G6- Lino LAzzaRINI, Universita, Padova

teborg CLAUDIO LEONARDI, Scrittore della Bi-

HERMANN M. GOLDBRUNNER, Biblio- blioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Citta

theksrat, Istituto Storico Germanico, del Vaticano

Roma LIBRAIRIE H. COEBERGH, Haarlem

N. Y. & Cle, Paris

Mrs. JoHN D. GorDAN, New York, LrsrarrRie DES MERIDIENS, KLINCKSIECK GRANT AND CUTLER, University and LipreriA BELTRAMI, Firenze

Foreign Booksellers, London LIBRERIA COMMISSIONARIA C.L.IA., ERNESTO Grassi, Centro Italiano di Stu- Roma di Umanistici e Filosofici, Miinchen LriprerIA COMMISSIONARIA SANSONI, Fi-

Crcit GRAYSON, University, Oxford renze

N. Y. ma

Harpur COLLEGE Liprary, State Uni- LiprertA EDITRICE INTERNAZIONALE versity of New York, Binghamton, «L’ERMA» di BRETSCHNEIDER, RoOtto HaARRASSOWITZ, Wiesbaden LIBRERIA EDITRICE INTERNAZIONALE

bridge ma port, Sundbyberg renze

Dents Hay, Old College, Edinburgh ROSENBERG & SELLIER, Torino W. Herrer & SONS, Booksellers, Cam- LiBrerta INTERNAZIONALE RIZzoui, RoIBot-Norpen, Abt. Kupfrians Bokim- LiBRERIA INTERNAZIONALE SEEBER, Fi-

Jozer Iysewyn, Université, Louvain LIBRERIA INTERNAZIONALE DI SILVANO INDIANA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, Bloom- VALLERINI, Pisa

ington, Ind. LIBRERIA INTERNAZIONALE COMMISSIOINSTITUT DE RECHERCHE ET D'HISTOIRE NARIA DENISE BoTTO WILLEM, Ge-

DES TEXTES, Paris nova

Instiruto Histérrco & GEoGRAHCO LisrerIA OTTO LANGE, Firenze

BrasSILetro, Rio de Janeiro LipreriA GIUSEPPE LATERZA & FIGLI,

INTERBOOK, London Bari

INTERNATIONAL UNIverRsITY Booxset- LisreriA Levi, Milano

- ERs, London LIBRERIA LIBERMA, Roma IstrruTO DI FILoLociA GRECA, Univer- Liprerta GIA NARDECCHIA, Roma

sita, Palermo LipreriA O1az, Loyola-Azpeitia

IstrtuTO DI Frrotocia MopeERNA, Uni- _Lisrerta LEO S. OLscuHki, Firenze

versita, Messina LIBRERIA DEL PORCELLINO, Firenze IsTITUTO DI PALEOGRAFIA E DIPLOMATI- LIBRERIA SFORZINI, Roma

ca, Universita, Padova LrpreriA N. SIMONELLI, Perugia ISTITUTO DI STORIA MEDIOEVALE EMo- ___Lipreria TICCcI, Siena

DERNA, Universita, Perugia LipreriA P. TOMBOLINI, Roma IstrTUTO STORICO GERMANICO, Roma Peter Lone, Berlin-Neuk6lln

H. P. Kraus, Old and Rare Books, L.JENARO MAcLENNAN, Taylor InManuscripts, Maps, New York, N.Y. stitution, University, Oxford KONGELIGE BIBLIOTEK, Copenhagen Domenico Marrel, Universita, Siena KUNSTHISTORISCH INSTITUUT DER RyKS- | GIUSEPPE MAINARDI, Universita Catto-

UNIVERSITEIT, Utrecht lica del S. Cuore, Milano

TABULA GRATULATORIA XI ALBINIA DE LA Marg, Oxford Carto Pincin, Montebelluna (Treviso) ScEVOLA Mariotti, Universita, Urbino CLEMENTE Pizzi, Liceo Classico Statale,

Guipo MarTELLOTTI, Universita, Ro- Lucca

ma Exten Power, Librarian, University

HamiLtton A. Matues, United States College, Dublin Information Agency, Silver Spring, Giovanni Pozzi, O.F.M. Cap., Uni-

Md. versité, Fribourg ,

MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA, DeociéciIo Repic DE Campos, Ispet-

Cambridge, Mass. tore dei Musei Vaticani, Citta del VaPrerreE MEeESNARD, Directeur, Centre ticano d’Etudes Supérieures de la Renais- HERBERT REICHNER, Old, Rare and

sance, Tours Scholarly Books, Stockbridge, Mass.

MESSAGGERIE ITALIANE, Milano GIANVITO Resta, Universita, Messina MEvuLENHOFE & Co, Grossbuchhand- Pier Giorcio RICccrI, Universita, Pa-

lung, Amsterdam dova

Cuarres R.D. Mier, Mediaeval A- Dorotuy M. Rosatuan, Wellesley cademy of America, Cambridge, College, Wellesley, Mass.

Mass. ROMANISCHES SEMINAR, Universitat,

ARNALDO MomIGLIANO, Universita, To- Marburg

rino e University College, London WALTER Rijecc, Universitat, FrankJacques MONnrRIN, Ecole Nationale des furt a. M.

Chartes, Paris Morris H. SAFrron, New York, N. Y.

Fausto Montanari, Facolti di Ma- Mario Satmi, Universita, Roma

gistero, Genova Paoto SAMBIN, Universita, Padova

Miinchen Lecce

MoNUMENTA GERMANIAE HistorICA, GIOVANNI SANTINELLO, Universita,

Rocer A. B. Mynors, Corpus Christi Dorotuy M. SCHULLIAN, Cornell Uni-

College, Oxford versity Libraries, Ithaca, N. Y.

NEwBERRY Liprary, Chicago, Ill. CESARE SEGRE, Universita, Pavia FRANcis L. Newton, Vanderbilt Uni- Tarsor R. Sersy, University of Rich-

versity, Nashville, Tenn. mond, Va.

Martinus Niyworr, Bookseller and SEMINAR FUR KLASSISCHE PHILOLOGIE IM

Publisher, Den Haag INSTITUT FUR ALTERTUMSKUNDE, Freie La Nuova Iratia Brsuiocrarica, Fi- Universitat, Berlin-Dahlem

renze SEMINAR FUR LATEINISCHE PHILOLOGIE

Revito P. Ontver, University of Illi- DES MITTELALTERS, Universitat, Hei-

nois, Urbana, Ill. delberg

Gupert Ouy, Bibliothéque Nationale SocmrA Eprrrice «VITA E PENSIERO»,

et Centre National de la Recherche Milano ,

Scientifique, Paris SOPRINTENDENZA BIBLIOGRAFICA PER IL Giulio F. PAGALLO, Caracas VENETO ORIENTALE E LA VENEZIA ParKER & SON, Booksellers, Oxford GIULIA, Venezia Grecor PAULSSON, Universitet, Uppsala | Acostino Sort, Monticelli d’Ongina

BERNARD M. Pzesies, Catholic Uni- (Piacenza) versity of America, Washington,D.C. | STAATS-UND UNIVERSITATS-BIBLIOTHEK,

ANTHONY L. PELLEGRINI, Harpur Col- Hamburg

lege, State University of New York, Kurt StAneit & Co., Buchhandlung,

Binghamton, N. Y. Ziirich

renze lers, Helsinki |

ALESSANDRO PeErRosA, Universita, Fi- SUOMALAINEN KIRJAKAUPPA, Booksel-

PrerPONT MorGAN Lrprary, New York, Swers & ZEITLINGER, Boekverkopers

N. Y. & Uitgevers, Amsterdam

XII TABULA GRATULATORIA Texas CHRISTIAN Unriversiry, Mary Maurizio Virate, Universita Statale,

Couts Burnett Liprary,' Fort Milano

Worth, Texas Warsurc INSTITUTE, University, LonFRANK ALLAN THOMSON, Stockholm don S. Harrison THOMSON, University of | Ernest H. WiLkins, Newton Centre,

Colorado, Boulder, Colo. Mass.

Giuseppe TOFFANIN, Universita, Napoli FRANCESCO ZACCHERINI, Direttore della

GERHARD TRENKLE, Wissenschaftl. Lite- Biblioteca «A. Oriani», Ravenna

ratur, Planegg vor Miinchen MARCELLO ZICARI, Pesaro Unrversiry Lisrary, Dundee T. P. ZIMMERMANN, Firenze VICTORIA AND ALBERT Museum (Li- Kart Zink, Buchhandlung u. Antiqua-

BRARY), London riat, Miinchen

LIST OF PLATES

Pt. I. 1. Florence, Laur. Marc. 38, fol. 29r. Coluccio’s notes. See p. 151. 2. Florence, Laur. Marc. 383, fol. 147r. Coluccio’s notes.

See p. 156. 152

Px. II. 1, 2. New York, Morgan Library, M. 810, fol. 1r, under white light (left) and ultraviolet light (right). See p. 202. 3. Vat. lat. 868, fol. 179r. Signature of Coluccio and Tommaso da Sarzana (Nicholas V). See p. 184. 4. London, Brit. Mus. Harl. 2655,

fol. sor. Signed by Coluccio, 1357. See p. 199. 160 Pr. III. 1. Vat. Ottob. lat. 1883, fol. 163r. Copied by Lombardo della Seta and signed by Coluccio. See p. 193. 2. Vat. lat. 1928, fol. 1r. Coluccio’s pressmark. See p. 186. 3. Vat. Chigi G. vii. 191. Salutati coat of arms. See p.3. 4. Florence, Laur. Marc. 566, fol.

38v. Signed by Coluccio, 1370. See p. r's9. 164 ,

notes. See p. 167. 168 Pi. IV. Florence, Laur. Fies. 176, fol. r04r. Priscian with Coluccio’s PL. V. 1. Florence, Laur. xirx, 18, fol. 117r. Only the top notes are Coluccio’s, not the Greek and its translation. See p.147. 2. Florence,

Naz. Magl. xxix. 199, fol. 42r. Variants by Coluccio. See p.176. 176 PL. VI. London, Brit. Mus. Add. 11987, fol. 12r. Seneca copied by

Coluccio. See p. 197. 196

Px. VII. 1. Vat. lat. 989, fol. Iv. Perhaps Coluccio’s hand. See p. 184. 2. Florence, Laur. Strozz. 46, fol. 12v. Coluccio’s note. See p. 168. 3. London, Brit. Mus. Eg. 818, fol. 2v. Coluccio’s

notes. See p. 199. 200 PL. VIII. 1. Paris, Bibl. Nat. 8123, fol. 75r. Coluccio’s verses on Petrarch’s Africa (not autograph). 2. Florence, Laur. x11, 10, fol. 11.

Coluccio’s copy of Petrarch. See p. 145. 204

Px. IX. 1. London, Brit. Mus. Add. 16411, fol. 133r. Copied by Ambrosius de Florentia for Coluccio. See pp. 198, 267. 2. Florence,

Laur. Marc. 654, fol. 1r. Same scribe. See pp. 164, 267. 216 Pi. X. 1. Florence, Laur. txxvul, 22, fol. 1r. Same scribe as on

XIV LIST OF PLATES Pl. rx. See pp. 151, 267. 2. Florence, Naz. Conv. Soppr. I. vi. 18,

fol. 14v. Same scribe. See pp. 172, 267. 224 Pi. XI. 1. Florence, Naz. Conv. Soppr. I. 1. 19, fol. 8r. Coluccio’s De seculo. Same scribe. See p.267. 2. Milan, Ambr. D 43 inf., fol.

8or. Same scribe. See p. 267. 232

Pr. XII. 1. London, Brit. Mus. Add. 16411, fol. 138v. By one of Coluccio’s scribes. See pp. 198, 268. 2. Florence, Laur. xXx, 21,

fol. 1r. Same scribe. See pp. 144, 268. 240 Pr. XIIL. 1. Florence, Laur. Marc. 603, fol. 1r. Same scribe as on Pl. xu. See pp. 160, 268. 2. Vat. lat. 444, fol. 1r. Same scribe. See

pp. 180, 268. 248 Pr. XIV. 1. Vat. lat. 3110, fol. r2v. By one of Coluccio’s scribes. See pp. 189, 268. 2. Vat. lat. 2063, fol. 7or. Same scribe. Coluccio’s

notes. See pp. 187, 268. 3. Vat. lat. 989, fol. 63v. Same scribe.

Coluccio’s notes. See pp. 184, 268. 252 Pr. XV. 1. Vat. lat. 3110, fol. 18v. By one of Coluccio’s scribes. Coluccio’s notes. See pp. 189, 268. 2. Florence, Ricc. 872, fol. 16v.

Same scribe. See p. 268. 256

Pi. XVI. 1. Florence, Naz. Conv. Soppr. I. vi. 29, fol. 132r. By one of Coluccio’s scribes. See pp. 173, 268. 2. Chicago, Boccaccio,

fol. 16r. Same scribe. See pp. 201, 268. 264 Pr. XVII. 1. Vat. lat. 3110, fol. rov. See pp. 189, 270. 2. Vat. Reg.

lat. 1391, fol. 3r. Same scribe as on Pl. xvi. See pp. 269, 271. 268

p. 270. 272

Pr. XVIII. 1. Chicago, Boccaccio, fol. 217v. Same scribe as on PI. xvi. See pp. 201, 271. 2. Florence, Laur. Strozz. 95; fol. ir. See

Pr. XIX. 1. Vat. Chigi I.1v. 117, fol. 6v. Same scribe as on Pl. xvi. See p.271. 2. Chicago, De seculo. Same scribe. See p.271. 276

PREFACE

Many years ago, while working on the texts of various Latin authors, | I came upon manuscripts once owned by Coluccio Salutati. Eventually I concluded that it would be useful to search out as many as possible of the hooks that once were in his library and to see what acquaintance he had with writers of antiquity. The title of this book indicates its indebtedness to Pierre de Nolhac’s excellent book Pétrarque et l’humanisme (ed. 2,

Paris, 1907). Even more important for developing my interest in the theme were R. Sabbadini’s truly epoch-making volumes, Le scoperte dei

codici latini e greci ne’ secoli XIV e XV (Florence, 1905, 1914). This book is not intended to be a full-scale biography of Coluccio Salutati. The heart of the book is in Chapter IX, the list of well over one hundred books that once belonged to his fine library, together with the following chapters that draw various conclusions from these manuscripts, especially from the marginal notes by Coluccio, and from the quotations in his own compositions. The notes can in no way compete in interest with the highly personal comments that Petrarch scattered over the margins of his manuscripts. That other books once in Coluccio’s possession are still in existence I do not doubt. I hope that those who find them will publish their discoveries

or bring them to my attention. Ways of identifying his manuscripts are mentioned in this book. My most thorough searches were in Florence. There I examined every manuscript in the San Marco collections of the Laurenziana and Nazionale libraries, as well as many others. In the Vatican too I examined a great many manuscripts, thanks to the kindness of Cardinal Mercati. In trying to determine Coluccio’s knowledge of antiquity and in part to decide whether certain manuscripts had belonged to him, I found it necessary to read his own writings and to collect the quotations in them.

In two instances such study resulted in first editions of his works: De laboribus Herculis (Zurich, 1951) and De seculo et religione

(Florence, 1957). |

Though the earlier chapters of this book are not exhaustive, they do :

include much new material. The book as a whole endeavors to put Coluc-

XVI PREFACE cio in his rightful place in the history of the humanistic Renaissance, a place which heretofore has been denied him. He was second to Petrarch in the humanistic movement but not far behind. In some respects he was far ahead of Petrarch, as in starting the very important Florentine circle of humanists, though even here Petrarch was in part the inspiration behind it. The present volume, then, is meant to serve as a chapter in the history

of the humanistic Renaissance. This book has been too long in the making. I owe a great debt to my good friend Giuseppe Billanovich for his insistence that I finish it. I am also grateful to him for many excellent suggestions. I owe much to others who informed me about manuscripts once in Coluccio’s collection: Cardinal

Ehrle, Cardinal Mercati, Prof. A. Campana, Mgr. E. Carusi, Mgr. A. Pelzer, Mgr. J. Ruysschaert, Prof. E. Rostagno, Dr. Teresa Lodi, Seymour de Ricci, Prof. S. Harrison Thomson, Prof. P. O. Kristeller, L. Bertalot.

B. L. ULLMAN

Chapel Hill, N.C., February 1963

CHAPTER I

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF

COLUCCIO SALUTATI |

CHAPTER [|

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF COLUCCIO SALUTATI In the fourteenth century three branches of the Salutati family lived in the beautiful and fertile Valdinievole, the valley of the Nievole,

between Pistoia and Lucca." According to tradition, these three branches, resident at Pescia, Stignano, and Buggiano, originally came from the neighborhood of Lucca. In 1330, Piero Salutati, a leading Guelph at Stignano, fled from his home as a result of Ghibelline victories. Leaving his wife behind him, he went to Bologna to enter the employ, at a good salary, of the ruler of that city, Taddeo de’ Pepoli, to whom he was recommended as a fine soldier and a man of good sense. On February 16, 1331, his wife,’ while still at Stignano, gave birth to her first child, Lino Coluccio, the subject of this book. The tragic cir¢umstances of the birth of this child had their comic relief: in the absence of the husband, Piero’s

wife and mother quarreled about the boy’s name. Finally they compromised by naming him after both his grandfathers, though the name of the maternal grandfather, Lino, was almost entirely 1. Unless otherwise indicated, the facts here presented are based on the letters in F, Novati’s edition, on his discussion in Vol. Iv, p. 381 ff., and on his La giovinezza di Coluccio Salutati (Turin, 1888). For other details see D. Marzi, La cancelleria della repubblica fiorentina (Rocca S. Casciano, 1910), p. 132 ff. See too A. Mancini, Sulle

traccie del Salutati (Lucca, 1920); I am indebted to Prof. Roberto Weiss for a photographic copy of this rare pamphlet, printed in fifty copies. Mancini suggests that Coluccio’s greatgrandfather was named Andrea, not Piero.

2. Novati says that her name is unknown; an unpublished family tree made in 1665 by Sincero da Lamole calls her Puccina (Vat. Chigi G. vu. 191). The manu-

script furnished some other new details. The granddaughter of Salutati’s brother Corrado was named Sandra (cf. Epist., 1v, p. 409); her brother Andrea had six children, not three (the hitherto unknown ones were Lucrezia, Pasqua, and Leone). Francesco and Leone are marked N. (‘naturalis,’ illegitimate). Salutati’s granddaughter Emilia married Pera Baldovinetti (cf. Epist., tv, p. 407); her sister Pampinea (taken from Boccaccio’s Decameron) is here named Pagnozza. That one of Salutati’s descendants named Antonio fought against the Turks (Epist., tv, p. 402) seems to be confirmed by the Maltese cross above his name in the Chigi manuscript and the designation cavalliere. The children of Simone (Epist., rv, p. 395, n. 25) are called Isabella, Lepido, Antonio (not Simone), and Angela. In the Pescia branch, Lisabetta (who Novati supposed died in childhood [Epist., tv, p. 418]) is said to have married Agnolo Neroni. Her brother Benedetto is credited with a second daughter Clemenza, who married Leonardo Mini.

4 CHAPTER I dropped in later years. Two months after the baby was born, the mother joined her husband at Bologna. Coluccio grew up amidst a family that increased regularly year after year, for in 1341, when his father died, he had seen at least nine brothers and sisters, of whom four had died. Coluccio Salutati must have revealed studious interests at an early age, even if we do not accept the literal truth of his assertion that he

had admired eloquence (that is, the ability to write good classical Latin) from the cradle.' He had an inquiring mind and all his life was fond of arguing and asking questions.’ After the death of Coluccio’s father the family continued to be

supported by Taddeo de’ Pepoli and, when he passed away in 1347, by his sons until they were forced from power in 1350. One of these, Giovanni, seems to have been Coluccio’s special adviser from the beginning.3 Coluccio was given an elementary education

and even enjoyed the advantages of travel.* Then, at the age of about fourteen, he began to study rhetoric with Pietro da Moglio, the one teacher of all his Bologna experience that he mentions. He kept up a correspondence with him for many years and after his death wrote in most complimentary terms about his character and his rhetorical teaching and styles’ From him he may have I. Epist., I, p. 230. 2. Leonardo Bruni in his Dialogus ad Petrum Paulum Istrum (T. Klette, Beitrage zur Geschichte und Litteratur der italienischen Gelehrtenrenaissance, 1 [Greifswald, 1889],

p- 45) has him say under date of 1401: “Equidem memini, cum puer adhuc Bononiae essem, ibique grammaticis operam darem, me solitum quotidie vel aequales lacessendo vel magistros rogando nullum tempus vacuum disputationis transiisse.” Coluccio himself says that he learned astrology by asking questions of Dagomari (Epist., 1, p. 17). In 1396 he gives a good picture of himself (Epist., m1, p. 131): “Scis mores meos, scis quod quiescere non possim, scis quam semper iuverit docere que tenui quamque importune exigam que non novi quamque gratum michi sit etiam de non cognitis disputare.” Cf. Epist., m1, p. $333 IV, p. 12. 3. Epist., 1, p. 37. Novati (Epist., 1v, p. 387) wrongly says Iacopo.

4. At any rate he mentions a visit to Venice at the age of thirteen (De lab. Herc., I, 3). There, like any other tourist, he saw at least one object that attracted wide attention (the tooth of a supposed giant) and visited a silk shop — possibly to buy presents for his mother and sisters. 5. Epist., 0, pp. 131, 182, 319, and a recently published letter in verse in B. L. Ullman, Studies in the Italian Renaissance (Rome, 1955), pp. 297-299. The first notice of Pietro’s activity as a teacher is when he and his brother rented a school building in 1347 (L. Frati, “Nuovi documenti su Pietro da Muglio,” Studi e memorie per la storia dell’universita di Bologna (Bibl. dell’archiginnasio], xu [1935], p. 81).

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF COLUCCIO SALUTATI $

acquired his fondness for Seneca’s Tragedies." That Petrarch and Boccaccio prized Pietro highly shows that he had the makings of a humanist.? Bologna, where Pietro himself had studied, had become famous for its rhetorical teaching in the thirteenth century, especially in that application of it called ars dictaminis.3 As this type of teaching was closely associated with the preparation for notarial training, it may have occurred to Giovanni de’ Pepoli that his ward might make a practical use of his literary studies and become a notary.* 1. See p. 39. Almost the only writings of Pietro’s that have survived are two tenline poems, each giving one-line summaries of Seneca’s Tragedies (Novati, Giovinezza [see p.3,n.1], p. 42). One awaits with interest the publication of some hitherto unknown works of Pietro by Gius. Billanovich in Italia medioevale e umanistica, vi (1963). Also included will be an unpublished letter of Santi da Valiana to Coluccio. 2. Perhaps Coluccio was brought to Petrarch’s notice by Pietro. The latter may have become acquainted with Petrarch as early as 1323-25, when Petrarch was a student at Bologna, as suggested by L. Frati, “Pietro da Moglio e il suo commento

a Boezio,” in Studi e memorie per la storia dell’universita di Bologna (Bibl. dell’ archi- | ginnasio), V (1920), p. 329.

3. A. Gaudenzi, “Sulla cronologia delle opere dei dettatori bolognesi,” Bull. dell’Ist. stor. ital., 14 (1895), p. 85; Helene Wieruszowski, “Ars Dictaminis in the Time of Dante,” Medievalia et Humanistica, 1 (1943), p. 95. Gaudenzi (p. 160) notes the wide knowledge of the classics possessed by the Bologna rhetorician Bene of Florence; Wieruszowski (p. 98) speaks of “a movement which may rightly be termed the first real revival of Cicero.” 4. There are several errors in Novati’s account of this period of Coluccio’s life (Giovinezza, p. 47). First he misinterprets Coluccio’s statement (Epist., 1, p. 37): “(lohannes) qualem ...se michi hortatorem exhibuit, cum parum me iuveniliter gestientem, non minaci facie, sed placatissima fronte corripuit, me iubens in litterarum militare gignasio.” I take this to refer to the beginning of his study under Pietro: it took the boy some time to get used to the new environment. Overlooking Coluccio’s last phrase in the above quotation, and intent on reconciling Coluccio’s remark with Manetti’s report that Coluccio took up the study of law against his will, Novati dramatically and incorrectly represents Coluccio at the crossroads, eager to continue on the path of poetry, but forced by Giovanni to enter the law. Coluccio goes on to say: “Et quasi iam tunc presagiret ingenioli mei vires, ad sacrarum legum studia compellebat.” Novati infers that Coluccio started the study of law and then shifted to the notarial course because the legal curriculum was too long. But since Coluccio says nothing about his notarial studies, which we know he undertook, I understand “sacrarum legum studia” to refer to the notarial course, in which study of the law was essential. In the original copy of Villani’s biography of Coluccio which the latter corrected at the author’s request (see p. 205), it is stated that after his literary studies Coluccio “ad studia iuris civilis se transtulit.” For the words iuris civilis the word notarie was substituted. Novati first attributed the correction to Villani (Giov., p. 47, n. 2) but later recognized that it was made by Co- . luccio (Epist., 1v, p. 490). From my examination of the manuscript I can confirm the latter statement. This fact shows beyond question that Coluccio did not enter

6 CHAPTER I At any rate, Coluccio entered the notarial school at Bologna, which was especially strong, perhaps because Bologna had a reputation in the preliminary subject of rhetoric and in law, the chief subject

of study of the prospective notary. Hardly had Coluccio finished his notarial course when his patrons,

the Pepoli, lost control of Bologna. So the Salutati family had to shift for themselves. After spending the first nineteen years of his life at Bologna, Coluccio and the rest of the family in 1350 or early in 1351 returned to the green valley of their origin.’ Was it just their inborn Tuscanity, so to speak, that lured them back? Or was it the hope of recovering some of their property? Or did their relatives urge them to return? All of these reasons may have entered into their decision. One of the brothers, Andrea, seems to have become a farmer, either on the recovered property of his father, which had been confiscated, or on newly acquired lands, for on his death (before 1387) he left farmlands to his famous brother. After obtaining his notary’s license, probably at Florence,? Salutati hung out his shingle in Stignano. Presumably from the first he became notary at Buggiano (to which Stignano had been attached the law course but stepped from liberal arts into the notaries’ school. The notarial course was actually at this time in the college of arts, not that of law (A. Sorbelli, Storia della universita di Bologna, 1 [Bologna, 1940], p. 110). Finally, since this course required only two years and Villani says that Coluccio completed it “cursu prepete,” it seems to me that Coluccio began it about 1348, rather than 1346, as Novati would have it.

Manetti’s report that Coluccio took up notarial study against his will is of no value, for, as Novati himself later stated (Epist., rv, p. 510, n. 1) it is based on Vil-

lani, who says that Coluccio entered upon his notarial studies “patre volente.” Novati (Giov., p. 47, n. 2) thinks that Villani was mistaken in saying that Coluccio studied to be a notary because his father wanted him to, for the father must have died several years earlier, but since Coluccio did not correct Villani’s statement it may be that the father had expressed the wish before he died. For notarial schools see Anselmo Anselmi, Le scuole di notariato in Italia (Viterbo, 1926).

1. Novati (Giov., p. 62), forgetting that Coluccio was two months old when he left the Valdinievole and that his brothers and sisters were all born in Bologna, pathetically describes the family recalling the appearance of their Tuscan home,

etc.! This could be true of the mother alone. 2. Not at Bologna (as Novati, Giov., p. 64, n., shows), but more probably at Florence than at Lucca, which Novati also suggests. The Valdinievole was now

under Florentine control, Florence was the big city to which Coluccio went to talk with learned men (“cum ex his locis ruralibus urbem [i. e., Florence] adibo” he wrote from Stignano in 1367 [Epist.,1, p. 17]), in Florence he bought books, such as the Ovid he acquired there in 1357 (see p. 199), etc.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF COLUCCIO SALUTATI 7

since the thirteenth century) and continued to hold that title while practicing his profession privately or by public appointment in

nearby communes for the next fifteen years or more. He was notary and judge of the commune of Pescia in 1351, a position which his Pescia cousins may have helped him obtain. In 1353 and again in 1357 we find him acting as notary in Buggiano, though he went to various nearby communes from time to time to execute special commissions.? Probably his next employment was at Em-

poli on the Arno, a short distance south of his native valley. In 1360 he was notary at Montecatini, again in the Valdinievole. Then in 1361 he writes from Uzzano, where he presumably was employed. In the same year he performed some notarial duties at Peccioli, some distance south of his valley, whether as wandering notary or in official employ is not certain. For the second half of the year 1366 Vellano, near Stignano, called him to act as notary

in the revision of its statutes.*

1. Epist., Iv, p. 387. 2. His Buggiano office of 1357 is indicated in his manuscript of Ovid’s Fasti (see p. 199), unknown to Novati. In 1352, 1353, 1355, 1356, he performed notarial work at Monsummano, Santa Maria a Monte, and Uzzano (Marzi, op. cit. [see p. 3, n. 1], p. 114). Even later Buggiano called on him for help: in 1385 to revise its statutes, in 1386 to act as arbitrator (Mancini, op. cit., pp. 8-10).

3. Two letters addressed to Nelli (Epist., Iv, pp. 241, 619) were written at Empoli August 19 and July 20 of some year or years between 1351 and 1363, according to Novati. That he was employed there is indicated by his words: “huius officii impedimentum” (Iv, p. 621). In the letter of July 20 he uses vestram once in addressing Nelli and thereafter the second person singular. In the letter of August 19, in asking permission to address Nelli in the singular, he uses the plural

three times; in the rest of the letter only the singular occurs. The only other letter in which the plural and the singular are found together is one that can be dated about 1361 (Epist., 1, p. 5), partly in verse, in which the singular is used, partly in prose, which reveals only the plural. On this slight evidence I should be inclined to date the Empoli letters before 1360. Their style too gives one the impression

that they are the earliest of those which are extant. |

4. The volume of the statutes of Vellano, which was in private hands when Novati wrote (Epist., 1, p. 33, n. 2) is now in the Pescia library (144), described by G. Mazzatinti and A. Sorbelli, Inventari dei manoscritti delle biblioteche d’ Italia, 60 (1935), p. 63. I consulted it while it was temporarily in the Laurentian Library.

The first twenty-six folios are in Coluccio’s hand. The statutes were approved by the “parlamento dicti communis” December 31, 1367, fifth indiction, but, as Novati notes, this is probably Lucca style, in which the year began December 25, so that the

date would actually be 1366. Later (Iv, p. 387) Novati gives the year as 1367, probably through inadvertence. The statutes were not copied in final form until some time later, after Coluccio’s term of office had expired, for after the date Co-

8 CHAPTER I When Salutati held public office in these little communities he received a small salary and in addition was allowed to accept fees for acting as notary in private cases. His work consisted of drawing up

contracts and other legal work of minor character. In his public capacity he had some judicial functions, acted as court clerk, kept official town records, and perhaps carried on official correspondence. Nearly all of the records and correspondence were in Latin.’ His total income was inevitably small. Was he content to go on in this way :? He spent seventeen of the best years of his life, from the age of nineteen to thirty-six, in such humble occupation in or near his valley. It seems likely that he was quite satisfied because he had much free time on his hands in which to read his beloved classics

and the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, to compose Latin poetry, to write Latin letters to kindred spirits, and to clarify his thinking and gather the material for the books he was to write. luccio added: “Et scripta, lecta, et publicata per me Coluccium . . . notarium et tunc notarium officialem dicti communis et scriptorem legum prefatarum.” On fol. 25, at the end of the statutes: “Ego Coluccius ... communis Buggiani publicus imperiali auctoritate notarius predictis omnibus dum fierent interfui et tunc notarius reformationum dicti communis predicta omnia legi, vulgarizavi, scripsi, et publicavi.” On fol. 26v there is recorded (in a different hand) the approval of a committee of Florentines, who mention “ser Colucci . ... communis Buggiani notarii.” It is of interest to note that in later revisions of the statutes Coluccio continued to act as notary, though leaving the details to subordinates. In the revision of 1388 (Florence style: December 30, twelfth indiction) he wrote (fol. 30): “Ego Colucius

...apostolica auctoritate notarius imperialique auctoritate iudex ordinarius et scriba publicus et tunc cancellarius Florentinus . . . interfui et ipsis de meo mandato scriptis manu Marchionis notarii.” Similarly in 1394 (Florence style; actually 1395: February 12, third indiction) and 1398 (September 13, sixth indiction), when his

assistant was Antonio di Santi Maffei. In the revision of 1412 (Florence style; actually 1413: March 24, sixth indiction) Salutati’s sons, Antonio and Bonifazio, served as notaries. All this shows that Coluccio’s engagement as notary the first time did not necessitate his living at Vellano (which perplexed Novati, Epist.,1, p. 346).

There is nothing to show that he did not live at Vellano (there are no letters preserved for the last half of the year 1366, a fact which Novati, confused by his earlier wrong dating of the letters of 1367, forgot), but as he continued to call himself “notarius Buggiani’ it is likely that he continued to reside at Stignano. 1. For the functions of the notary see Novati, Giovinezza, p. 66, repeated and amplified in his Freschi e minii del dugento (Milan, 1908), p. 299. See also Consiglio Nazionale del Notariato, Il Notariato nella civilta italiana (Milan, 1961).

2. Novati (Giov., p. 65) was confident that Coluccio must have sought greener pastures during this period, but documents discovered later forced him to abandon this view (Epist., tv, p. 387). To the new documents must be added the Ovid manuscript (see p.7, n. 2). 3. Only fourteen letters written before the middle of 1367 survive. The small-

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF COLUCCIO SALUTATI 9

It is to this period of Salutati’s life that Villani obviously refers when he says that after his notarial studies he was “repente adactus in poesim.”? In several of his early letters Coluccio speaks of writ-

ing Latin verse. To gain inspiration he could wander through the | woods and hills, the vineyards and the olive groves. Best of all he could indulge in discussions with learned men, especially in Florence, and in searching the bookstores. In January of 1366 an event took place which brought an end to this period of Salutati’s life: his marriage to a girl from his home town. It must have been a gala occasion: he asked a friend to send him three thousand oranges!? Whether as a result of his marriage

or not, his literary correspondence as we now have it shows an interruption of thirteen months. In June of 1367 he observes that as a consequence of his marriage he no longer has leisure for study and quotes Cicero (via Jerome) to the effect that one cannot serve wife and philosophy at the same time. Yet he indicates that he is beginning to return to his studies. But the leisurely life of a notary

in his tiny community is no longer possible; he must earn more money and devote himself more seriously to his notarial activities. So in the summer of 1367 he leaves his Tuscany once more to take the position of notary and chancellor at Todi. About this time he finished his first long poem, Conquestio Phyllidis. After being in

Todi only two months he began to aspire to a position at the Vatican. Was his wife the instigator of his new ambitions: We can only ask the question, not answer it. He wrote several letters to the papal secretary Francesco Bruni. In the first he merely wants to better himself. Then he complains of his small income and the political unrest at Todi. In two others to Bruni and in one to Boccaccio he insists that he will go to Rome and begin at the bottom. Obviously Bruni could promise him nothing but occasional odd

jobs as an assistant. Nevertheless, in March or April of 1368 . ness of this number makes it impossible to see significance in the fact that none is an appeal for help in securing a position. 1. The best edition of Filippo Villani’s biography of Salutati is in Epist., rv, p. 487. 2. Epist., 1, p. 15. 3. Novati (Epist., 1, p. $4) shows clearly the absurdity of the familiar statement that Salutati was papal secretary. He did secure the right to call himself a notary by apostolic, not merely imperial, authority.

10 CHAPTER I Coluccio appeared in Rome and stayed there (when he was not touring with the papal party) for just two years, until 1370. A hoped-for position at Perugia did not materialize, any more than

one at Viterbo which he tried for before coming to Rome.' In September, 1369, Urban V recommended him for a position at Lucca, which had been freed from Pisan domination shortly before. The same month Coluccio and his brothers were granted Lucchese

citizenship to take effect when he took up residence in that city. Obviously his appointment was already assured though he did not take up the office of chancellor of the commune until August of 1370.3 This was the most important position he had held; he even had a notary to assist him. He began to enjoy the prestige and importance such a position involved,* yet regretted the lack of leisure.

It seemed as if he would at last settle down permanently. But after his year’s term political quarrels prevented his reappointment.

He stayed on in Lucca, perhaps hoping for a change in circumstances. He may have done some special notarial work in Florence for a short period.’ Toward the end of 1371 his wife died, leaving a son less than a year old. Attempts to get a position at Arezzo or

elsewhere failing, he returned to his humble notarial work at Stignano.° In 1372-73 he married again; the bride was a distant cousin of the Pescia branch of the family. Finally at the age of 43, his great opportunity came: in February of 1374 he was appointed

notary in the office of elections at Florence and on April 19, 1375, | he was advanced to the position of chancellor, which he held for 1. Epist., 1, p. 47. In June, 1368, Salutati wrote a letter from Viterbo (Epist., 1,

p- 59); Novati observes that he must have gone there on his own. Could it be that he was still investigating the possibilities of employment there? 2. Citizenship was prerequisite to the holding of the office of notary at Lucca (Epist., v, p. 435). Urban V intervened a second time when Lucca was slow to act, apparently because she was reforming her statutes, thus making it possible to have a second chancellor (Mancini, op. cit., p. 7). 3. Chancellor of the commune, as is evident from the Lucca archives (Epist., tv, pp. 433 ff), not of the Anziani, as Novati states (Epist., Iv, p. 388); he has it correct on I, p. 129. 4. Epist., 1, p. 131. 5. Marzi, op. cit. (see p. 3, n. 1), p. 116. 6. For his lack of employment see Marzi, ibid. For his activity in 1373-74 see Consiglio Nazionale (see p. 8, n. 1), p. $13.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF COLUCCIO SALUTATI II

thirty-one years, until his death in 1406.’ An added source of happiness at the time of his election as chancellor was that his wife was expecting her first child.

The third period of Salutati’s life began: the first covered approximately twenty childhood and student years at Bologna; the second, the nearly twenty-five years as an obscure notary in the Valdinicvole and in short-term positions elsewhere. The permanence of his honorable and lucrative position in his favorite city was, at his age and with his family responsibilities, a great satisfaction, though from time to time he sighed for the leisure of earlier years. His hope that he might hold this position for the rest of his life was fulfilled.

The chancellorship of Florence became an important position during Salutati’s incumbency, partly because he had the qualities to make it such and partly because the permanence of his tenure gave him the opportunity to develop his talents. As official letter writer he became essentially the foreign minister of Florence. That the proletariat revolution of the Ciompi in 1378 did not affect his position is a tribute to the universal esteem in which he was held.

He was loyal and honest and tried to get along with everyone. His views were not extreme. He denied rumors that the revolution of the Ciompi had caused much destruction and bloodshed. Himself a Guelph and the victim of Ghibelline excesses, he deplored factional strife and felt that country should be put above faction.” His friendships were not determined by factional allegiance. It isan amazing fact, scarcely noticed and worthy of further study,

that so many of the humanists were notaries. Two of Coluccio’s famous disciples, Leonardo Bruni and Poggio, succeeded him in the Florentine chancellorship, and later that office was held by

none other than Niccolé Machiavelli. As soon as he reached Florence Salutati plunged into the city’s affairs with all his energy. To a friend in Lucca who had com1. For details of his activity as chancellor see Marzi, op. cit. (see p. 3, n. 1), pp. 112

nn I, pp. 13, 28, written some years before coming to Florence. Cf. 1v, p. 123, written in 1405.

12 CHAPTER I posed differences between his city and Florence he wrote a letter of praise, extravagantly comparing him to such ancients as Brutus and Camillus to their disadvantage. Florence detests tyranny, he says, and is always ready to defend the liberty of others as its own, from a selfish standpoint if from no other. Mutual trust is the basis of interstate relations. Every government, especially a government of the people, must consider the good of its citizens —a thought taken in part from Plato by way of Cicero." By 1378 Salutati had achieved such prominence in the direction of the affairs of Florence that he was one of three accused of heresy by Gregory XI for the part they played in the war between Florence

and the papacy. The war ended the same year and the charges were dropped. At the beginning of the war, in 1375,? soon after Salutati became chancellor, he had performed a clever bit of diplomacy that helped to mark him out for papal displeasure. A representative of the pope had been in Florence to urge its citizens to make peace; after leaving he wrote a number of letters of the same purport. The city deemed it best not to answer officially but Coluccio, clearly with the permission of its rulers, wrote a private letter. He points out that there is no war, since Florence is not attacking papal territory. He discusses war in Ciceronian terms. The Florentines will resist invasion to the end. Insistence on peace by the Church is a confession of wrongdoing. The Church wants a league of all Italian states, but what guarantee of peace and fair 1. Off. 1, 85. Other examples of private letters written for public purposes are cited by Marzi, op. cit. (see p. 3, n. 1), p. 137. It is not always easy to distinguish the

chancellor from the private citizen. 2. This is Novati’s date for Epist., 1, p. 213, as against Rigacci’s 1376. The chief argument centers about a reference to a shortage of grain in Florence: “anno preterito in summa annone caritudine.” The best argument for Novati’s date was not used by him, that in a public letter written by Salutati on behalf of the city (A. Gherardi, “La guerra dei Fiorentini con Papa Gregorio XI,’ Appendice, in Arch. stor. ital., Ser. 11, Tomo VI, Parte 1 [1867], p. 234), dated September, 1375, he uses practi-

cally the same language: “in anno preterito, dum urbs...annone summa caritudine laboraret.” There is another striking linguistic similarity in the two letters: “bellum ... forte minus iuste, sed saltem non necessarie illatum (Novati); bello quidem forte minus iusto, sed saltem non necessario” (Gherardi). Both are used of the war between the pope and the Visconti, in which Florence was neutral. A public

letter of December 7, 1375 (Gherardi, Tomo vir [1868], p. 213), in speaking of Hawkwood, also has phraseology similar to that of our letter.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF COLUCCIO SALUTATI 13

dealing could such a league or the Church give? Suppose that the Church should encroach on Florentine liberty, would or could the other members come to Florence’s rescue in time? In any case, Florence’s quarrel is not with the Church but with foreigners who have come to loot. (The reference is to the English condottiere, John Hawkwood, previously and again later in Florentine employ.) Besides, the pope cannot be trusted; he tears up treaties as if they were scraps of paper. He refuses to sell grain to starving Florence and unleashes the English barbarians against it. Let the Church not hope for factional dissensions among the Florentines: in a fight for liberty all will unite. In many of the public letters which Salutati wrote during this war he repeated some of the same thoughts and constantly stressed

the idea of liberty." He must have played an important part in keeping up the enthusiasm of the Florentines. Salutati’s loyalty to and love for Florence is indicated in other ways too. A number of letters (several quite long) deal with the plague, which paid a number of visits to Florence and other cities during his lifetime.” Sharply criticizing those who flee Florence to escape its ravages, he refuses to leave himself or to send his children out of the city. He argues that the plague is sent by God and that if it is his time to die he cannot escape death by running away.

But his piety, however genuine, was not the only cause of his stubborn and unscientific attitude; rather it was the justification for a still deeper feeling, that of patriotism. He felt that it was dangerous for Florence that its leading citizens should desert it and not be there to defend it against disorders.3 In his eloquent tribute to the city of his adoption he calls her the first in Tuscany, the greatest in Italy, the most famous in the world; she is free and the mother of freedom everywhere — and that is the crowning glory of nations. 1. See also p. 76. Of the 174 letters of Salutati in Rigacci’s collection, 130 are public letters dealing with this war and its ramifications. Some may not have been actually written by Salutati (cf. Marzi, op. cit. [see p. 3, n. 1], p.119). A translation of another letter of the same type was published in La potesta temporale del Papa giudicata da Francesco Petrarca, da Coluccio Salutati, e da Giovanni de’ Mussi (Florence, 1860).

2. Epist., 1, p. 170; U, pp. 83, 98, 104, 112, 221, 228, 238; II, pp. 379, 392, 396. 3. Epist., ul, p. 85.

14 CHAPTER I When after many years the plague returned he still maintained the same view in spite of the loss of his oldest and best beloved son and helper, Piero; he compromised (though he stoutly maintained that he had not changed his opinion) to the extent of sending all but one of his other children to Stignano. Nor did the death of another

son a few months later alter his determination to carry on. The plague is a thing of the past but the inhabitants of cities bombed during the last war can understand the thoughts and emotions of Salutati and his countrymen. In the record of Coluccio’s election to the chancellorship, which is preserved to us, nothing is said about his qualifications. But when he was reélected in 1376 it was found that he excelled other candidates in character, virtue, and the knowledge of literature, and that every

confidence was felt in his uprightness and knowledge of the law. In the election of 1388 he is hailed as a pupil of the fountain head of eloquence, that most dazzling of all orators, Cicero, and as a mirror of all natural and moral philosophy, through whose outstanding qualities the city of Florence is conspicuous throughout the world, since she has been wonderfully honored by his letters, - composed in a dignified and discriminating style.’ Within a few years these words found striking justification. During the war between Florence and Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan,

which began in 1390, the latter said that a thousand Florentine horsemen did less damage to him than the letters of Coluccio. Many are familiar with this famous remark who know nothing else about the chancellor of Florence.”

Coluccio’s effectiveness was so great that the Count of Virtue, as the Milanese leader was called, sent assassins to get rid of the Florentine chancellor, as Coluccio himself, on reliable authority, informs us.3 Finally Gian Galeazzo had a letter forged which pur1. The first and third documents are in Epist., tv, 437, 464; the second in Marzi, op. cit., (see p. 3, n.1), p. $78. 2. The remark is quoted by Coluccio’s contemporaries and is as solidly grounded as most historical “facts.” Novati’s slight skepticism (Epist., Iv, p. 247), accepted by Marzi (op. cit. [see p.3, n. 1], p. 146) is entirely unjustified. It is true that the number

of horsemen varies, becoming at times twenty thousand. 3. Epist., Iv, p. 251 (1391).

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF COLUCCIO SALUTATI I ported to be a betrayal of Florence to Milan by Coluccio. This letter

he sent to the Florentine authorities; these, however, accepted Coluccio’s assurance that the letter was a forgery. As two Florentines

had been convicted of selling Florentine secrets to the Duke of Milan in earlier years, the Duke probably thought that it would be easy to convince the Florentines of Coluccio’s guilt. In 1390 he successfully used this trick to induce the Marquis of Mantua to cut off his wife’s head. Some years later the Mantuan got revenge by falsifying letters implicating Pasquino de’ Capelli, the chancellor

of the Duke of Milan. The latter, taken in by his favorite trick,

put Capelli in prison, where he soon died. , Capelli’s successor as Visconti’s chancellor was Antonio Loschi, a

disciple and friend of Salutati’s. When the formidable Duke of Milan was again at outs with Florence, Loschi thought to ingratiate himself with his patron by writing a Ciceronian invective against

the Florentines - and thereby started: the procession of political invectives which became a popular feature of the Renaissance. At the urging of a friend, Salutati, after some hesitation, undertook to write an answer, in order to make partial payment on the debt that he owed Florence, his “mystice genitrici.”* No wonder then that Salutati refused flattering offers by kings, popes, and emperors (if we can believe his contemporary, Domenico di Bandino),? and preferred to stay in his beloved Florence.

The esteem in which Salutati was held became manifest at the time of his unexpected death on May 4, 1406. He was awarded the honor of the laurel wreath for poetry.3 After imposing funeral ceremonies conducted by the city authorities his body was interred in the great cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, instead of the small church where he had planned to be buried alongside his wife and two oldest sons. Salutati had ten sons and no daughters. Most of the sons followed ecclesiastical or notarial careers. Two of them, as well as a nephew, were assisting him at the time of his death. Out 1. Epist., m1, p. 636. For Coluccio’s Invectiva see p. 33.

2. In his life of Salutati, quoted in Epist., tv, p. 503. , 3. On the coronation see G. Conti, Fatti e aneddoti di storia fiorentina (Florence, 1902), p. 129.

16 CHAPTER I of respect and honor for Salutati the city government made special provision for them. As the news of Salutati’s death spread in humanistic circles, expressions of grief and appraisals of his accomplishments were heard on all sides. Poggio called him the haven and refuge of all scholars, the bright light of his fatherland, the glory of all Italy.t He praised

his character and his helpfulness to humanists. Antonio Loschi called him the outstanding Latin writer of the time. Vergerio summed up Salutati’s influence by calling him “communis omnium magister.” Nowhere, he adds, is the Latin language known where Coluccio’s name is not famous; Florence is indebted to none of its citizens more than to him for his services in war and in peace.?

1. These statements are based on documents found in Epist., 1v, pp. 470 ff. 2. For a sympathetic account of Coluccio’s career as chancellor, with quotations from unpublished public letters, see E. Garin, “I cancellieri umanisti della repubblica fiorentina,’ in Rivista storica italiana, LxxI (1959), p. 185; reprinted in his La cultura filosofica del rinascimento italiano (Florence, 1961), p. 3. A. Segre, Alcuni elementi storici

del secolo XIV nell’epistolario di Coluccio Salutati (Turin, 1904), is based on the first three volumes of Novati’s Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati.

CHAPTER II

SALUTATI S WORKS

CHAPTER II

SALUTATI’S WORKS It has sometimes been stated that Salutati, in distinction from Petrarch and Boccaccio, was content with scholarly pursuits and did not consider it important to engage in the creation of literature, and that this attitude was transmitted to the later humanists. The truth is quite different: Salutati’s ambition was to write and he has in fact left us a large literary legacy, published and unpublished. But since he lacked the genius of his two great predecessors, few of his writings left any impression on his contemporaries or successors. In his later years he realized this himself. When an overenthusiastic correspondent acclaimed Salutati as a foster child of the Muses and as Italy’s single shining light in poetry, he protested against this exaggeration." He belittled his own work by saying that like a tailor he made garments out of the fine remnants of antiquity. Best known and most influential of the writings of Salutati are some of his letters. A contemporary called him the best letter-writer (dictator) of his time, and said that he was better even than Cassio-

dorus.? Following Coluccio’s own lead,? Novati has rigorously divided the epistles into two classes, the private letters, which alone he includes in his great edition, and those written on behalf of the city of Florence. The manuscripts and the earlier, incomplete edition of Rigacci make no such distinction. An edition of all of Salutatis public letters (insofar as his authorship can be established or made plausible) is a great need. They are far more numerous than

the private letters, which number three hundred and forty-four in Novati’s edition. About 1395, eleven years before death put an I. Epist., w, p. 453; cf. m1, pp. 79 f£., 482; Iv, p. 73, etc. M, p. 79, is a letter to Jean

de Montreuil, who, however, is not a mere flatterer, since he sings Coluccio’s praises to others (A. Thomas, De Ioannis de Monsterolio vita [Paris, 1883], pp. 1o1102). The same is true of an anonymous correspondent of Pietro da Moglio (B. L. Ullman, Studies in the Italian Renaissance [Rome, 1955], p. 299; cf. p. 302). 2. Epist., W, p. 79. 3. Epist., m1, pp. 75, 89, 145; IV, p. 73. 4. In Epist., v, p. 73, Salutati says that the private letters are incomparably fewer.

20 CHAPTER II end to Salutati’s activities, he had published over a thousand letters.’

Some of the public letters written for Florence made a strong impression. The influence of one of the earliest was recalled by Giovanni da Ravenna eighteen years after it was written.? Uberto

| Decembrio asserted that Salutati’s letters in behalf of his country’s liberty were known throughout the world and compared Coluccio to such ancient heroes as Horatius Cocles and the Scipios.3 The private letters, covering some fifty years of Salutati’s life and dealing with a variety of subjects, are addressed to correspondents of all sorts. Many of them are notaries like Salutati, but they also

include three popes, several cardinals, bishops, and other prelates, heads of many city states in Italy, including the King of Naples, humanists like Petrarch and Boccaccio, Antonio Loschi and Giovanni Conversino da Ravenna, Leonardo Bruni and Poggio, officials and military men, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Margrave of Moravia, the Spaniard Juan Fernandez de Heredia and the Frenchman Jean de Montreuil, and even one woman. Numerous are the letters of recommendation and those written

in behalf of some friend or acquaintance. Sometimes an action desired by the city of Florence is supported in a private letter. In many letters Salutati asks for the loan or sale or transcription of books. Sometimes he interprets a passage of an ancient author on request, or takes up questions of textual criticism, orthography, grammar, etymology, and literary criticism. In some he encourages the study of literature. Historical questions are discussed. Imitating Seneca, he wrote many letters on philosophical themes, such as

friendship, truth, prudence, nobility of character, old age, free will, worldly pleasures, patriotism. The numerous letters of consolation belong here. It is his letters and his private conversation that gave Salutati a reputation as a philosopher; Zabarella calls him

“sapientissimus” while Vergerio acclaims him as the leading philosopher of the age and acknowledges the great help he received 1. According to Villani (Epist., 1v, p. 495). One private letter not in Novati was published by me in Studies, p. 301; seven others will be published by Billanovich (Studies, p. 203). 2. Epist., IV, p. 306. 3. Novati in Arch. stor. lomb., Ser. 1v, 10 (1908), p. 196.

SALUTAT?S WORKS 21 from him.’ The inquiries put to him by his correspondents indicate his authoritative position as a moral philosopher. He talks like a Stoic, as his contemporaries realized.? The letters on the plague

lead to Christian-Stoic reflections. Descriptive letters include those about the entry of Charles IV into Rome (I, p. 85), the religious enthusiasm of the Bianchi (im, p. 349), a remarkable new style of singing (I, p. 456). Among the letters which became particularly famous, as indicated by the number of existing manuscripts and by other criteria, these deserve mention: the one in which he distinguishes two Sen-

ecas, the playwright and the philosopher (Epist., 1, p. 150); “la querelle des anciens et des modernes,” in which he ranks Petrarch above the ancients (1, p. 334); one of his discussions in favor of the

use of fu, not vos (I, p. 394); an interpretation of Seneca’s first letter to Lucilius — a lively subject of dispute at the time (1m, p. 239);

an answer to the question whether truth is to be put above friendship (mm, p. 342); his Christian-Stoic reply to a letter of consolation on the death of his treasured oldest son Piero (m1, p. 408); a letter

to Innocent VII in praise of Leonardo Bruni (iv, p. 105); four of his letters on the Schism (m1, p. 197; IV, p. 42; Rigacci, pp. 18, 39).

Salutati preserved copies or first drafts of many of his letters. He did not publish a complete collection but on request sent copies

of a selected number to friends with the proviso that they be not published; he leaves it to his “adopted sons” (i. e., his disciples, such as Bruni and Poggio) to make a selection of both private and public letters for publication after his death. Something of the sort was done, as we shall see.*

The De laboribus Herculis exists in two forms, neither of them complete. The so-called first edition is really a long letter to Giovanni da Siena, who died in 1383, as we now know, not a decade 1. Epist., m1, p. 458; L. Smith, Epistolario di Pier Paolo Vergerio (Rome, 1934),

Pe Leonardo Bruni complains that Salutati acted like Zeno or Diogenes (Epist., IV, p. 118, n. 2).

3. Epist., m1, p. 75, to Jean De Montreuil. He sent him twenty-seven private and ninety-six public letters (1, p. 145). For the “adopted sons” see m, p. 89. 4. See p. 271.

22 CHAPTER II earlier, as Novati supposed.’ Salutati states at the beginning that

one reason for writing was that he was asked the meaning of Seneca’s Hercules furens by Viviano, a Florentine notary who had been a student of Giovanni’s and became a friend and colleague of Salutati’s in 1378. Probably, therefore, the treatise was not begun

until after that time. In any case it could not have been written before 1375, as Coluccio refers in it to his position as chancellor. Salutati planned to submit his thoughts, as expressed in this letter or treatise, to Giovanni for criticism and to abide by the latter’s

judgment as to its suitability for publication. Since the treatise is incomplete, as shown by Salutati’s failure to keep his promise to discuss various topics, it presumably was not only not sent to Giovanni but was in fact abandoned at the latter’s death in 1383 in favor of a more comprehensive and less personal treatment. The single manuscript we have of the first edition was what I would call an authorized or official copy made soon after Coluccio’s

death from the abandoned first draft.? Filippo Villani mentions this treatise in the first edition of his life of Salutati (1381-82). Salutati himself makes no mention of it in any of the published letters. As it is in letter form it naturally has no title, but Villani calls it De laboribus Herculis. Coluccio read and corrected Villani’s

biography* but made no comment on the title, which, therefore, we may presume to have been satisfactory to him. Salutati refers to the second edition of his major work as Hercules or Hercules noster in 1391, 1398, and 1400, and gives it the more specific title De sensibus allegoricis fabularum Herculis in 1405.5 The 1. Epist., 1, p. 164. Novati concluded that Giovanni died at Bologna in the pestilence of 1373-74. But a newly found document shows that he was still alive in August, 1382 (L. Frati, “Pietro da Moglio e il suo commento a Boezio,” Studi e mem. per la storia dell’ univ. di Bologna [ Bibl. dell’ archiginnasio], v [1920], p. 239). The plague

of which he died must have been that which occurred in 1383 (Griffoni in Muratori, R.I.S.2 xvin, Parte m [1902], p. 78). Therefore Coluccio’s letter in I, p. 164, must be dated 1383, not 1373-74. See also my Studies, p. 208. Both editions are printed in Colucii Salutati De laboribus Herculis, ed. B. L. Ullman (Ziirich [pow Padua], 1951). 2. See p. 271. 3. Epist., tv, p. 492. The fact that Villani mentions the work in 1381-82 is no indication that it was then completed, as Baron implies by his “but” (H. Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, 1 [Princeton, 1955], p. 560). 4. See my Studies, p. 241.

5. Epist., 1V, p. 253; Il, pp. 311, 380; Iv, p. 76.

SALUTATI’?S WORKS 23 manuscripts of the work itself have no title except at the beginning of the fourth book, where they read Allegoriarum liber quartus super fabulis Herculis, which is in close agreement with the title in the letter of 1405. Probably Coluccio would have chosen some such

title if he had completed the work. In 1398 or 1399 Pellegrino Zambeccari writes that he would like to have a copy of the book De gestis Herculis.* Villani is not only the first, as far as our records go, in giving the name De laboribus Herculis to the first edition but the only one who seems to have known that there were two editions and to have given the same title to both. At least, in the first edition

of his own work (1381-82) he describes Coluccio’s first edition and in his second edition (1395-96) he amplifies his account.? If Domenico di Bandino is telling the truth (circa 1390), Coluccio intended to dedicate this second edition to him, though the existing manuscripts bear no indication of this. Only two manuscripts of the second ‘edition are known, one the official copy made soon after Coluccio’s death.+ There are various indications of incompleteness. A little more than a year before his

death Coluccio said that of the four books only the second was complete though even it required revision.’ Later he seems to have

finished the third book as there is no sign in it of an unfinished state, though, of course, Coluccio may have intended to revise. At the end of the first book there is a chapter heading: “Quod poetica fons et principium sit omnium figurarum. Capitulum

xu,” but not a word of text was written for it. Book tv lacks several promised chapters at the end. No dedicatory introduction was written. The first edition of De laboribus Herculis was in effect a Seneca moralizatus or allegorizatus, perhaps suggested by the mediaeval allegories of Ovid. As its author tells us at the beginning of the work, it arose out of a reading of the Hercules furens. A contributory

factor may have been the mediaeval interest in Hercules, who 1. L. Frati, Epistolario di Pellegrino Zambeccari (Rome, 1929), p. 72. 2. Epist., IV, p. 492. 3. Epist., 1v, p. $03; Domenico says “sub meo titulo.” 4. See p. 271.

5. Epist., Iv, p. 76. ,

24 CHAPTER II represented fortitude, especially as exemplified by a figure of that hero on the seal of Florence, which the Florentine chancellor had frequent occasion to notice. This figure was used on the seal as early as 1275 or thereabouts.’ How could Seneca let Hercules become a god in the Hercules Oetaeus after representing him as a murderer of his wife and children in the Hercules furens?' That question perplexed Salutati, with his

Christian ideology, and he wrote his treatise in the first instance to

answer it. The explanation lies in allegory, he maintains. Pocts in general are not to be taken literally but have a hidden meaning, as may be seen from Cicero, Macrobius, and others, especially Boccaccio in the De genealogia deorum. The poets embellish their poems with God, the universe, and living beings. They give various names

to God and his attributes but realize that there is but one God. God himself is called Jupiter; Juno represents his wisdom. Both get their names “a iuvando”, from helping each other in the creation of

all things. As heat is the active agent in creation and moisture is the passive substance, Jupiter may be regarded as fire; Juno, however, is not water, which would quench fire, but air. Then the story of Hercules is told briefly, followed by the listing of the many individuals named Hercules. As allegory depends largely on etymology, Salutati next discusses the meaning of the names of Hercules

and other participants in the story. Hercules represents the soul, Megara the flesh, and the whole tale concerns creation. As Megara’s

three sons symbolize irascibility, sensuality, and concupiscence, their murder by Hercules is justified, and the killing of Megara depicts the triumph of the soul over the flesh. 1. Robert Davidsohn, Geschichte von Florenz, u, 2 (Berlin, 1908), p. 125; Luigi Passerini, “Il Sigillo Fiorentino con lErcole,” Periodico di Numismatica e Sfragistica,

I (1868), p. 276. Similarly it is possible that another chancellor, Leonardo Bruni, was thinking of the seal of the state of Florence when in the De Bello Italico he wrote that the Italian states, after the disasters of invasion, began to flourish, as they still do, just as Hercules became more famous as a result of his labors. Niccola Pisano placed Hercules on the pulpit of the Baptistery of Pisa in 1260, shortly before Hercules appeared on the Florentine seal. The place of Hercules in mediaeval thought deserves a full treatment. Margherita Morreale published an edition of Enrique de Villena’s Los doze trabajos de Hércules (Madrid, 1958). Earlier she had compared Salutati and Villena, who wrote in 1417 quite independently of Salutati (Studies in Philology, 1 [1954], p. 95).

SALUTATP?S WORKS 25 Then comes the interpretation of the story of Hercules’ descent to the Lower World, introduced by an allegorical explanation of dif ferent kinds of descent. The four virtues enabled Hercules to profit by the journey: prudentia brought him knowledge, temperantia abstinence from pleasures, fortitudo victory over vices, iustitia a return to God. The returning Hercules, therefore, depicts the all-virtuous soul. Such, very briefly summarized, is Salutati’s allegorical explanation of Seneca’s play. This would, he says, be sufficient to carry out

his purpose but he deems it desirable to supplement this meagre | fare with a good dessert in the form of a second book dealing with the labors, death, and deification of his hero. But this plan was not brought to completion. A long passage discusses the meaning of Charon and his dealings with Hercules. It ends with the comment that those who wish to shed light on poetry must take into account

not only the truth -such as the Christian view that the soul is created by God for each individual - but the various opinions of pagan philosophers ~ such as the Platonic idea that souls pass from one individual into another. Cerberus also comes in for a lengthy

presentation, being none other than the Devil himself. Most of the labors are left unmentioned, and the promise to deal with the death and deification of Hercules is not fulfilled. The second edition was entirely rewritten and expanded to four

books. The whole first book, nearly finished by 1391, is devoted to | poetry, its meaning and purpose and importance, as we shall see,’ and opens with a defense of poetry. Thus from an explanation of an apparent contradiction in Seneca the work has been transformed,

as a result of attacks on humanism, into something much more significant. The allegorical treatment that follows is meant to prove the great importance of poetry. His definition of the poet is worth

quoting: “Est igitur poeta vir optimus laudandi vituperandique peritus, metrico figurativoque sermone sub alicuius narrationis 1. See p. 68. In 1391 he writes that he plans to devote four books to the work (Epist., tv, p. 253). At the beginning of Book u of De laboribus Herculis (p. 76, 6 of

my edition) he says he had planned to put his thoughts in three books, but the defense of poetry, to which he intended to devote one or two chapters (p. 73, 4), led

to a change of plan. Therefore most of Book 1 must have been finished by 1391.

26 CHAPTER II misterio vera recondens.” Here we have a paraphrase of the classical

, Cato’s definition of the orator, combined with the mediaeval Averroes’ interpretation of ancient Aristotle, and culminating in mediaeval Christian allegory. A fitting statement for a mediaeval

man who at the same time is a budding Renaissance humanist.’ | Book 1 of the De laboribus Herculis consists of thirteen chapters, with at least one more projected, but at the beginning of the second

| book Salutati says that he had originally expected to cover the subject in one or two chapters. He regarded it as the fixed center for the other books. Even the first two chapters of Book n deal with poetry. The rest of Book m discusses the meaning of Jupiter and Juno and the conception and birth of Hercules. The first two books thus develop at great length matters discussed in the first

few pages of the first edition. Book m opens with the mention of the many heroes by the name of Hercules and then proceeds to the labors, largely untouched in the first edition. Book 1v is divided

into two parts: the first deals with the Lower World in general and with the descent of Orpheus, Theseus, and Amphiaraus; the second, with the descent of Hercules. Other topics which Salutati intended to discuss in this book are indicated in one of his letters: the wives of Hercules, Mt. Oeta, and the second capture of Troy.” The same and other items are promised throughout the work itself.3 Both editions of this Herculean work are throroughly mediaeval in their allegorical method; they are modern in their extensive and first-hand quotation of classical authors. The second edition was Coluccio’s major work, yet it was very little read, as shown by the existence of only two manuscripts, and consequently had very little influence.

Another mediaeval work was the De seculo et religione, written about 1381 at the request of a Camaldolese monk who desired that

his determination to remain in his monastery be strengthened.* 1. Coluccio repeats the definition, obviously quoting this passage (“quem aliquando. .. diffinivi’) in Epist., m, p. 66. Although Novati refers to the passage of the De laboribus, he fails to see that the letter quotes the treatise. The letter was written in 1397 or 1398 (see my Studies, p. 228) not 1395, as Novati surmises. 2. Epist., Iv, p. 76 (1405). 3. See Introduction to my edition, p. viii. 4. Published by B. L. Ullman, Colucii Salutati de seculo et religione (Florence, 1957).

SALUTATI’S WORKS 27 Book 1 deals with the evils of secular life, Book m with the joys of monastic life. Coluccio was so eloquent that he convinced Martin

and others not only that Coluccio presents a fine example of mediaeval outlook but also of Coluccio’s own beliefs.' The former

we can grant, though one wonders why Martin searched for the mediaeval outlook in an incipient humanist rather than in a completely mediaeval man of a century or two earlier. Martin admits the humanism of Coluccio in another work,? already announced in the earlier one. This separation tends to give Coluccio a split personality. The trouble is that we today, in looking back at the early Renaissance, have our vision distorted by the intervening high

Renaissance. We seem to be unable to put ourselves in the place ofa man like Coluccio and to see him growing out of his mediaeval-

ism into a new humanism. These two terms involve a very large

number of items, which, like atoms, were variously mixed in : various individuals. Martin’s thesis has been seized upon by those who do not believe in a Renaissance. But the Renaissance did not

spring full grown from the head even of Petrarch. Coluccio in particular was a humanist in a state of evolution, with many mediaeval traits still clinging to him. Martin goes too far in thinking that Coluccio believed all he said, that he favored monasticism under any circumstances. Coluccio was sincere in urging it upon the monk who asked him to write something that would help him.

He accepted the institution of monasticism but did not himself become a monk. If a friend had asked him for reasons for not dedicating himself to a monastic life, he might well have presented in great detail a point of view opposed to that of the De seculo -

and he would have been just as sincere.3 As a matter of fact, he did | 1. Alfred von Martin, Mittlelalterliche Welt-und Lebensanschauung im Spiegel der Schriften Coluccio Salutatis (Munich, 1913). 2. Coluccio Salutati und das humanistische Lebensideal (Berlin, 1916).

3. Revilo P. Oliver in Speculum, xxxrv (1959), p. 133. T. F. Rich in a detailed discussion which has not been published came to the same conclusion. L. Borghi in Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Ser. u, Vol. 1 (1934), pp. 75, 469, does not quite meet the issue. Much better, though brief, is the argument of E. Garin, “I trattati morali di Coluccio Salutati” in Afti dell’ Accademia fiorentina di Scienze

morali, “La Colombaria,” 1943, p. 53.

28 CHAPTER II urge his friend Zambeccari not to enter a monastery.’ The discussion is much shorter than in the De seculo because he was not

asked to dissuade Zambeccari, as he was asked to persuade the Camaldolite. A number of other letters bear on the problem. Even before the De seculo was written Coluccio discussed with Giuliano Zonarini the related question of life on earth as against the future life.? Later, Zonarini seems to have pointed out the inconsistency of Coluccio in zealously urging monasticism in the De seculo and living an active life himself: The foregoing had been written before the appearance of Toffanin’s article.t Perhaps what I have just said is sufficient to remove the misunderstanding of my brief and possibly ambiguous remarks in the introduction of my edition of the De seculo et religione. I certainly had no thought of questioning Coluccio’s sincerity. He believed that a man should hold to his monastic vows, therefore he brought every argument and every rhetorical device to bear on his

Camaldolese friend. In the same fashion he wrote to a certain Catherine, who at the age of eleven had been forced into a convent by her mother.’ She ran away and appealed to Coluccio, obviously because he was the leading humanist of the day and she had a deep interest in the new humanism, quoting Seneca and other ancient authors to Coluccio. But he urged her to respect her vows. Nonetheless she married and bore children. Finally she appealed to the Pope,

whose delegate, an archbishop, released her from her vows and legitimized her marriage. Thus pope and archbishop were more lenient than the Florentine chancellor. Yet, as I said, he urged Zam-

beccari not to become a monk. There was a place for the layman and one for the monk; sometimes the former is nearer God than

the latter, Coluccio maintained.® Coluccio did not arrive at 1. Epist., Wl, p. 303. 2. Epist., 1, p. 294.

3. Epist., u, p. 331. Novati’s tentative date for this letter (1392) seems too late. It should have been written fairly soon after the publication of the De seculo (1381). Other letters bearing on the matter are II, pp. 365, 449; Ill, pp. 98, 262, 337. 4. Rinascimento, 9 (1958), p. 3. R. P. Oliver in Speculum, xxxIv (1959), p. 131, presents my point of view better than I have done it. 5. Epist., WM, p. 337.

6. Epist., m1, p. $41.

SALUTATI?S WORKS 29 mediaevalism, as Toffanin puts it, but was a mediaeval man developing into a humanist. My statement implies no disparagement of the term mediaeval. In his attitude to monasticism Coluccio never reached the antimonastic stage of the new humanists, so well described by Novati, quoting Vian: “Gid umanista schietto, come in tant altre cose, si manifesta Giovanni in quest’avversione pe’ frati, ’inveir contro i quali doveva diventare . . . una specie di luogo comune della retorica umanistica.”! Still later Garin’s article came to hand.? We are in almost com-

plete accord. Perhaps he emphasizes the influence of rhetoric in Coluccio’s treatise a little more than I do, though, as he saw, I implied its influence in the introduction of my edition. Garin quotes Coluccio’s two little orations which take both sides of the question whether an elective or a dynastic monarchy is preferable. He aptly notes that if only one of these had been preserved, it would be difficult to resist the temptation of attributing the point of view of that one to Coluccio. In fact, one might venture to say that there

are some who would surely not resist that temptation. These orations had occurred to me too, though I did not mention them. Garin also brings up the case of Zambeccari, as I did. One of the things that fascinates me most about Coluccio is that we can see in him the transition from the mediaeval to the Renaissance world. He holds fast to some of the ideas he inherited but abandons others. He seldom quotes mediaeval writers by name but rarely fails to identify his Biblical and ancient sources. He was far less “humanistic” than Petrarch, but on the other hand he had a

more even temperament and did not swing from one extreme to the other. Another thing is to be remembered: Coluccio set out to clothe the De seculo with a literary, or rhetorical, garb. We may think of Cicero, who wrote the Paradoxa in order to polish up the rather 1. Epist., IV, p. 327, n. 8. I cannot accept the implication in H. Baron’s statement in his Crisis, p. 93: “He had abandoned his plan to write a book De Vita Associabili et Operativa, and in its stead had written De Saeculo et Religione” (italics mine). There was no possible connection between abandoning the one and writing the other. 2. E. Garin in Rivista critica di Storia della Filosofia (1960), p. 73. For Gilson see the next chapter (p. 48).

30 CHAPTER II uncouth presentation of Stoic philosophy. He accepted some of the tenets of that philosophy but cannot be called a Stoic. Over thirty manuscripts of the De seculo are in existence. Many of them were once in monasteries, where the treatise naturally had its greatest influence. De fato et fortuna is next to the De laboribus Herculis in length

among Coluccio’s works, though only one-third as long.’ It is divided into five tractatus: de ordine causarum, de fato, de fortuna, de casu, unde clades provenerint Perusine.? The first tractate is introduc-

tory, the last two are appendices.? Coluccio says the work was divided into two volumes, “primo de causis atque fato, necessitate,

libero arbitrio Deique providentia et sanctorum predestinatione; secundo... de fortuna et casu; et. . . cur civitas Perusina tam atroci

, bello civico dissideret.”* The last was written as an afterthought in reply to a question put to him by the abbot of S. Salvatore di Settimo, but the entire work was dedicated to this abbot. Only the first “book,” on fate, had been finished in 1396.5 Riiegg is right in suggesting that the work was started and perhaps in great part completed before the abbot’s request came. In that case, the main work was completed about 1398, the appendix soon after, for in that year blood was shed in Perugia. In this treatise Coluccio deals with the old problem of free will. His position is thoroughly orthodox and his chief guide is Augustine. He rejects the pagan definitions of fate and fortune, thus dis1. This has not been published; an edition has been promised by W. Riiegg. Discussions of the work by Riiegg in Rinascimento, v (1954), p. 3; L. Gasperetti in La Rinascita, tv (1941), p. 555; E. Garin, I trattati, etc. 2. Riiegg calls them books, which is misleading, as the first tractate contains only three chapters (twelve pages); the fourth, one chapter (three pages); the fifth, onc chapter (five pages). The work gets its name from the two main portions, though some manuscripts include De casu in the title. 3. Coluccio ends the third by saying: “Nunc autem aliqua seorsum de casu dicenda sunt ut finem operi quod instituimus apponamus.”

4. Epist., Iv, p. 73 (1405). _

5. Epist., m1, p. 145. De fato et fortuna was the title used by Coluccio in 1396 and 1399 and by Villani in 1396. It is paraphrased by the dedicatee. De casu is added to the title by Coluccio in 1405 and by Bandino. This may suggest a date after 1399 for Bandino’s work. Coluccio had a tendency to postpone settling on a final title, as may be noted in the case of De laboribus Herculis and De seculo et religione. For the documents, see Epist., M1, pp. 145, 370; IV, pp. 73, 74, 494, 507.

SALUTATI?S WORKS 31 agreeing with the occasional usage of the thoroughly inconsistent Petrarch."

The De fato was fairly well-known in its day. At least thirteen manuscripts are extant. Two of them were corrected by the author (Vat. lat. 2928 and Venice, Marc. Class. x, Philos. 266 = v1, 109); a third was copied from Coluccio’s copy in 1408 (Vat. Urb. lat. 1184).

In 1390 the physician Antonio Baruffaldi asked his friend Coluccio to tell him whether verecundia, “shyness,” was a vice or a virtue.” In making the request Antonio alluded to Petrarch’s statement that physicians have no need for eloquentia, the style or art of speaking. Coluccio quickly takes up the challenge, and so the full title of his short letter-essay is “Quod medici eloquentie studeant et de verecundia an sit virtus aut vicium.” He treats Petrarch’s remark as a joke and urges physicians to take up the study of eloquence. Then he discusses the principal question, as he'calls it. According to the

Greeks (including Aristotle) shyness, or blushing, is due to the

fear of dishonor and therefore is not a virtue but a passion. But | verecundia was considered a virtue by the Romans, e.g., Cicero, Seneca, Horace, Valerius Maximus, and others. Characteristically, the modest Coluccio, instead of considering Antonio’s request a burden, thanks him for getting him to think about the problem.

Of the five manuscripts known to me, Laur. Strozz. 96 was corrected by Coluccio. Obviously the essay was not widely read. In 1399 Coluccio finished the De nobilitate legum et medicine, which

deals with that old and ever new problem which used to engage many an American university campus, whether law or medicine is more useful. Of course Coluccio plumps for the law, which represents social and humane studies, as against the sciences of which

medicine is a representative. Actually his presentation is broader than his title indicates; it is comparable to present-day discussions of the sciences versus humanistic and social studies. Coluccio was 1. Petrarch’s usage has been recently examined by Klaus Heitmann, Fortuna und Virtus, Eine Studie zu Petrarcas Lebensweisheit (Cologne, 1958); see my review in Speculum, XXXIV (1959), p. 661, for Petrarch’s inconsistency. 2. Epist., , p. 267, n. 1. The treatise was published, along with the De nobilitate legum et medicinae, by E. Garin (Florence, 1947).

32 CHAPTER II led to write this book to refute his friend the physician Bernardo, who had composed a treatise (now lost) in which he took the other side. Coluccio courteously addressed the volume to him, accompanying it with an Italian sonnet.’ Unlike Petrarch, Coluccio was polite, though forthright. Coluccio begins by maintaining that nobility is based on virtue, not on consanguinity. Then he defines law and discusses its origin, following which he does the same for medicine. To him medicine represents the intellectual life, law the active life, as it deals with the actions of men, and the active life is based on will. The nub

of the problem is whether speculation belongs to medicine, as Bernardo asserts, or to philosophy, as Coluccio holds. Speculation’s aim is happiness, according to Aristotle. The speculations of physi-

cians aim at curing disease. We have here the beginnings of the familiar conflict between pure and applied science. By setting off Grosseteste, quoted by Bernardo, against Ulpian, Coluccio hints at the conflict between mediaeval scholasticism and the new hum-

anism that sprang in part from the newly introduced study of Roman law at Bologna. Coluccio’s arguments lead to a number of “conclusions”. Only three manuscripts are known, all corrected by the author (Laur. 78, 11; Strozz. 95; Paris 8687). Apparently the book was not widely read in his own day.?

The De tyranno is another letter-essay, written in 1400 at the request of a law student. It is based in part on Bartolo of Sassoferrato. First Coluccio defines the tyrannus as a usurper who rules unjustly. Next he brings up the question of the propriety of killing a tyrant. He answers in the affirmative. Just as an individual has the 1. Epist., W1, p. 391. The continuation of the quarrel is taken up by Garin in his edition, p. XLvi ff. and in his La disputa delle arti nel Quattrocento (Florence, 1947); also by Giulio F. Pagallo in Italia medioevale e umanistica, 0 (1959), p. 467; Lynn Thorndike, Science and Thought in the Fifteenth Century (New York, 1929), p. 24.

There was enough interest in the matter to cause an edition of Coluccio’s work to be published at Venice in 1542. 2. It is quoted several times by Thomas Diplovatatius (died 1541), De claris iuris consultis (ed. Hermann Kantorowicz and Fritz Schulz, Berlin, 1919).

3. Epist., 1, pp. 422, 479; Iv, p. 75. Edited by A. von Martin (Berlin, 1913)

. and F, Ercole (Berlin, 1914; Bologna, 1942, with Italian translation). English translation by E. Emerton, Humanism and Tyranny (Cambridge, Mass., 1925).

SALUTATI’S WORKS 33 right to defend himself and his property, so citizens have a right to defend their state against a usurper. Was Julius Caesar a tyrant? He was a usurper, yes, but in the end he acquired his power lawfully. So he was no tyrant and his assassination was not justified. Coluccio agrees with Dante in condemning Caesar’s murderers. Finally he answers his correspondent’s inquiry whether Aeneas and Antenor were traitors in negotiating with the Greeks for the surrender of Troy, as Dares and Dictys asserted. Coluccio observes that Sisenna absolved Aeneas, and Livy absolved both. Coluccio leaves the decision to his reader but makes clear that Livy is the best source.

It is surprising that Coluccio, brilliant defender of free Florence, should defend Caesarism and monarchy. Possibly his correspondent, a student in Padua, may have asked his question because Padua

was under the rule of tyrants, the Carrara family. He may even | have asked Coluccio whether Dante’s defense of the tyrannocides was justified. It would be like Coluccio to advise against any overt act against the ruler of Padua. But this is pure speculation. In 1385 he strongly approved of the capture of Bernabo Visconti as being a tyrant.’ Only five manuscripts of the De tyranno are known, from which

one would gather that it was not widely read in his day. Yet it seems to have had an indirect influence, for the discussion continued.

During the war between Milan and Florence, Antonio Loschi, formerly a disciple of Coluccio’s, wrote an invective against Florence to ingratiate himself with the Milanese tyrant, Gian Galeazzo Visconti. When Coluccio eventually obtained a copy, he hesitated for a while before answering it; he had never before attacked anyone.” He finally completed his reply, the Invectiva in Antonium 1. Epist., U, p. 140.

2. Epist., 1, p. 634. An edition of the work by D. Moreni appeared in Florence in 1826. Iam unable to accept the chronology proposed by Baron (Crisis, p. 76, etc.; Humanistic and Political Literature in Florence and Venice [Cambridge, Mass., 1955], p- 51). He would have Coluccio begin his book in 1397 and finish it in 1402-03

and speaks of “first draft” “final version,” “two strata,” etc. There is no shred of evidence for this. As Novati shows, Loschi wrote his invective in 1397-98 after the outbreak of the second war between Florence and Milan (spring, 1397). On account of the war Coluccio did not see a copy for some time (Novati suggests two or three 3

34 CHAPTER II Luscum, in which he pretends that Loschi could not have been the author of the attack. With continual quotations of Loschi’s words, he answers point by point and reveals his affectionate pride in his adopted city. Five manuscripts of the Invective have come down to us, of which Moreni used two for his edition (Florence, Naz. nm, Iv, 165 and Laur. 90 sup. 417; the other three are Paris 8573 and n. a. 1. 1152, and Oxford, All Souls 94).

The foregoing are the only works mentioned by Coluccio in 1405 in reply to a request for a list of his writings.’ Yet he wrote much more. There were his declamations, especially his Lucretia, the most popular ofall his works. Over fifty manuscripts are known to me. In this highly rhetorical and emotional little speech, he has Lucretia speaking just before she commits suicide. Its influence,

direct and indirect, was by no means slight in the very popular Lucretia literature, down to Bandello and Shakespeare.? Another declamation, or short treatise, in two parts, first argues that a monarchy by succession is better than one by election, then takes the opposite point of view; it was mentioned above in connection with the De seculo. The only copy we have (Vat. Cappon. 147) is Coluccio’s first draft, written and much revised by himself. Another treatise is a “questio coram decemviris quid in re civili statuendum sit qui fecerint carmen famosum contra aliquem vel ipsum recitaverint.” His orations, or arenghe, resemble some of his public letters. One years after its appearance, which would take us to 1399-1401). Actually Coluccio’s letter to Pietro Turchi (Epist., m1, p. 634), written September 11, 1403, makes clear that Coluccio was nearing his seventy-third birthday (February 16, 1404) when he received Loschi’s treatise from Turchi. He says, furthermore, that he is returning Loschi’s invective and enclosing his reply, written therefore — all of it —- in the summer of 1403. On July 21 he sent a chapter (near the beginning) to Domenico Bandini (Epist., 1, p. 628). Since he was refuting Loschi point by point it is natural that some of his statements fit 1397 or 1398, when Loschi wrote, rather than 1403. 1. Epist., tv, p. 69. 2. Published in the epistles of Aeneas Silvius, Niirnberg, 1486 and 1496, Hain , 154, 156, No. 428; Milan, 1496, Hain 157, No. 427; Lyon, 1497, Hain 158, No. 427; Basel, 1541, p.959, etc. Also in L. Mehus, Vita Ambrosii Traversari, 1 (Florence, 1759), p- cccii; H. Miiller in Blatter f. d. bayer. Gymnasial-Schulwesen, 14 (1878), p. 371. See too H. Galinsky, Der Lukretia-Stoff in der Weltliteratur (Breslau, 1932).

SALUTATI??S WORKS 35 is an exhortation to defend Bologna against the Milanese, found in five manuscripts. Another is addressed to the people of Ancona on the occasion of a victory. One is for a group of government officials visiting Cardinal Philippe d’Alencgon.’ One speech addresses

French envoys on behalf of the commune of Florence. A brief Ratio punctandi is attributed to Coluccio in three manuscripts.” He also revised the translation of Plutarch’s De cohibenda ira made by Simon of Thebes; four manuscripts are known. Coluccio planned to write a De gloria as his last work but did not succeed in doing so.3 He said that he intended to criticize the ancients and defend modern scribes for errors in the transmission of our texts; how this would fit in an essay on glory is not clear.* So far we have been concerned only with the prose works which Coluccio produced in large quantities. But he was also a prolific writer of verse, especially in his earlier years. We can see from his verse that he was trying to follow in Petrarch’s footsteps. His earlier letters have frequent verse enclosures, as his 269-line exhortation of Petrarch to finish his Africa (Epist., 1, p. 231). Other letters are entirely in verse: 189 lines in Epist., 1, p. 281; 218 lines in un, p. $7. In one letter he states that his friend’s request for a poem recalls his

youthful studies and proceeds to grind out 201 verses (Epist., u1, p- 345). This letter, written about 1392, is the last to include new verses of his. Imitating Petrarch and Boccaccio, Coluccio wrote a Bucolicum carmen in his carly years, and sent one eclogue to Boccaccio in 1372

(Epist., 1, p. 156). Except for short quotations in the letters, these 1. In Vat. Cappon. 147, just mentioned, where it immediately precedes the treatise about succession or election in a monarchy. It is the manuscript that Mehus describes in the preface (Vol. 1, Florence, 1759) of P. Canneti’s edition of the Latinae epistulae of Ambrosius Traversarius, pp. 301-302. He says that the oration is autograph. At least the heading is in Coluccio’s hand. Mehus does not say where

he saw the manuscript, but the Capponi collection was at that time in Florence, : where Mehus was living. 2. British Museum, Harl. 2575, fol. 36; Venice, Marc. lat. x1, ror, fol. 64v; Perugia 720. One other has it without author’s name: Florence, Laur. Conv. B. 4. 349. Cf. Epist., m1, p. 176. See below p. 111.

3. Lab. Herc., p. 282, 1. 4. Older writers mention an Ars dictandi or Ars dictaminis, but I have found no trace of such a work. Novati does not mention it.

36 - CHAPTER II poems have disappeared, perhaps, as Novati suggests, destroyed by the author.’ The Conquestio Phyllidis, written in or before 1367, is still extant in half'a dozen copies. In 1389 Coluccio, obviously having Petrarch’s Africa in the back of his head, commenced an epic poem. The curious circumstances

under which he began are related by him in a letter.2 He had gone to the public baths for a good ancient Roman bath, beginning with the sweating room. There he conceived the idea and started the task of composing the description of a battle. On reaching home he undertook to write out the twenty or more verses at the dinner table, which was being set by a servant. One can imagine the servant putting down now a plate, now a knife, and each time saying

permesso (or the fourteenth-century equivalent thereof) while Coluccio obediently moved his paper. The next day he decided that the poem should deal with the war of the Romans with King Pyrrhus. He composed about as much as would be found in a book of the Aeneid and then he broke off, never to resume his task again. The Fabula de vulpe et cancro exists in at least six copies. Coluccio

translated two of Petrarch’s sonnets into Latin.2? A Wolfenbiittel manuscript (Helmstadt 319b, of the year 1454) attributes to him a two-page Epitome Statii Achilleidos. Numerous manuscripts contain a few of Coluccio’s Italian sonnets. Here again Petrarch’s influence

is apparent.‘ |

1. See E. Carrara, Studi petrarcheschi ed altri scritti (Turin, 1959), pp. 203-217. 2. Epist., ul, p. 58.

3. E. H. Wilkins, The Making of the Canzoniere (Rome, 1951), p. 262. The versions are printed in A. Zardo, II Petrarca e i Carraresi (Milan, 1887), p. 306. Teresa

Hankey published the text of some epigrams Coluccio wrote for the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 22 (1959), p. 363. 4. The tragedy De casu Cesene, attributed to Coluccio in an Ambrosian manuscript, was the work of Ludovico Romani da Fabriano; F. Novati in Archivio storico per le Marche e per l’ Umbria, 0 (1885), p. 135; R. Weiss, Il primo secolo dell’umanesimo

(Rome, 1949), p. 94.

CHAPTER III

HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM IN SALUTATI

.

-

CHAPTER III

HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM IN SALUTATI Everyone knows about the part that Petrarch and Boccaccio played in the revival of antiquity and in the literary Renaissance in general. Few have heard of Coluccio Salutati. That is true partly because he did not, like his celebrated fellow Florentines, become famous

for literary productions in the vernacular. There is no question about Petrarch’s unique position as a founder, or perhaps better, as a propagator of the new movement. Boccaccio, however, important though he is, has been overrated, at least in comparison with Salutati. Had Boccaccio not written the Decameron, his contribution to the ancient revival would be less well known. But

it is not intended to detract from Boccaccio; rather to exalt the importance of Salutati, who was the undisputed leader of the humanistic movement for thirty-two years, from the death of Petrarch in 1374 to his own demise in 1406. As Novati has said, the most strenuous battle fought for the classical revival in the late 1300's was that waged and won by Salutati. Through his efforts the new

movement took a giant stride forward in the path opened by Petrarch, for he initiated the intimate connection between literature and politics to which humanism thenceforth gave sanction." Much has been discovered and much more has been written about the origin of the Italian Renaissance. Yet beyond the realm of our knowledge there is a mysterious land of Cimmerian darkness which we cannot penetrate. Even in the case of Salutati, who is not one of the earliest of the humanists and who reveals much about himself, there is no little uncertainty. Coluccio’s first contacts with the humanistic movement which blossomed into the Italian Renaissance were made when he was a student in Bologna, as suggested in Chapter I. Pietro da Moglio,

his teacher there, may have introduced him to the Tragedies of 1. F, Novati, “Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati,” Bull. dell’Ist. stor. ital., 4 (1888), p. 64.

40 CHAPTER III Seneca and to the writings of Petrarch, both of whom Coluccio came to admire intensely. Since Coluccio in later years sent Pictro one or more samples of his verse, it would not be an unfair inference that during his school days he had been encouraged by his teacher to write verse.’ Pietro may well have instilled in his pupil a more than mediaeval curiosity about the literature of antiquity. Unfortunately we have few letters of Coluccio’s that date from his earlier years, none at all from his Bologna days, and little else that singles out the influences that shaped him in the crucial 1350’s,

after his return to his native Tuscany. To what extent he was subjected to the nascent humanism that was beginning to manifest

itself in Florence we do not know. In his later years he spoke highly of Geri d’Arezzo as a letter writer, but he could not have known him personally and must have based his judgment on a volume of Geri’s letters.t Even so, we do not, of course, know whether his acquaintance with Geri’s work began in his carly years.

The same can be said of the early Paduan humanist, Albertino Mussato, who died two years before Coluccio was born. Coluccio spoke of him in the same breath as Geri, and in the same complimentary vein. Even more interesting is another fact: of well over a hundred manuscripts owned by Coluccio that are still extant only

one was transcribed, about 1370, by Salutati himself, and that with great care, a copy of his great favorite, Seneca’s Tragedies. At the end he added Mussato’s tragedy, Ecerinis. Could he have become familiar with this work at Bologna, where we have suggested he got acquainted with Seneca? We cannot be certain. But the man who undoubtedly influenced Coluccio most to take the path of classical humanism was Petrarch. To be sure Coluccio’s first letter to Petrarch is as late as 1368, when our humanist had already fully developed his point of view. In that letter, however, 1. Epist., 1, pp. 3, 114. 2. See p.4, n.§ and p. §,n. 1. Novati imagined that Coluccio may have heard not only about Virgil, Cicero, and Seneca from the lips of Pietro but perhaps about Petrarch and Boccaccio (Giov., p. 47). 3. For early Florentine humanism see R. Weiss, The Dawn of Humanism in Italy (London, 1947), and especially his “Lineamenti per una storia del primo umanesimo fiorentino,’ in Rivista storica italiana, Lx (1948), p. 349. 4. Epist., m1, pp. 84, 409-410, $12-513.

HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM IN SALUTATI 4I

he states that he had written him long before — though probably not, as Novati suggests,’ as far back as his Bologna days. That first letter, which Petrarch did not answer, probably was written only a few years rather than twenty years before 1368. Coluccio’s admiration for Petrarch is, however, revealed in a letter written in the 1350's. As Salutati never met Petrarch he could have been affected only by his published work and by hearsay about him. Boccaccio too may have had some influence on the youthful Coluccio, though the correspondence between them did not begin until 1367.3 Salutati thought that Petrarch’s kindness to him may have been due to the intercession of Boccaccio, whose friendship Coluccio had long enjoyed. He may have met Boccaccio while visiting Florence after 1352. It was not Boccaccio’s published work that attracted Coluccio in the 1350’s, for in that decade Boccaccio

had published nothing in Latin but had composed only his Decameron and other Italian works—which did‘not count with Salutati.

But Boccaccio began his Genealogia deorum about 1350, and this certainly was a subject of mutual interest. Boccaccio’s extraordinary admiration of Petrarch may have infected his young friend. If we may judge from their custom in later years, their conversations were wholly occupied with Petrarch.® Coluccio knew other Florentine friends of Petrarch, minor and incipient humanists who may have had some part in moulding his tastes. Two letters that he wrote in the 1350's to Francesco Nelli, one of Petrarch’s most enthusiastic correspondents,’ are among the earliest that have been preserved. In one of these he replies to a letter

which Nelli had written giving high praise to one of Coluccio’s 1. Epist., 1, p. 61.

2. Epist., tv, p. 620; above p. 7, n. 3, and below, p. 42. 3. Epist., 1, p. 48. 4. Epist., 1, p. 62 (the first letter to Petrarch). 5- When Salutati surveyed Boccaccio’s achievements after his death in 1375 (Epist. 1, p. 226) he mentioned five of the Latin works but not a single one of those in Italian. 6. Epist., 1, p. 225. 7. See p. 7, n. 3. Nelli’s letters to Petrarch, dating from 1350-63, have been published by Enrico Cochin, Un amico di Francesco Petrarca (Florence, 1901). This translation of the original French edition of 1892 was based on a revision by the author.

42 CHAPTER III literary efforts.* He couples Nelli with Petrarch as Florentine stars of the first magnitude. From this letter it seems possible to infer that Coluccio received from Nelli copies of Petrarch’s works, perhaps including his letters to Nelli and others.” In the other letter, written

a month later, he praises philosophy, i.e., ethics, as the guide of life and points to Nelli and Petrarch as shining examples of men who apply philosophy to their own lives.3 Petrarch’s ethical ideas always had a strong attraction for Coluccio. Then he adds that both

Petrarch and Nelli are engaged in literary pursuits, that through their efforts the Muses are returning to their songs, and the springs

of inspiration are gushing once more. This is one of the earliest references to the reawakening which became the rebirth, or Renaissance, and is important in tracing sources of Salutati’s humanistic attitude. Francesco Bruni was another mutual friend of Petrarch and Salu-

tati, but he did not become a friend of the former until 1361,4 and we do not know when he and Coluccio became acquainted. Nor do we know when Coluccio made the acquaintance of Lapo da Castiglionchio, an old friend of Petrarch’s, though we do know that Coluccio in later years read a letter of Petrarch’s written to Lapo in 1352, and it is not impossible that he received a copy from Lapo himself:s

Another Florentine friend and admirer of Petrarch’s was Zanobi da Strada, who went to Naples as chancellor in 13 52. Salutati reports

hearing him lecture on Virgil before he left Florence for Naples. This lecture would seem to have been of some importance in form1. Epist., Iv, p. 619. 2. Cochin, op. cit., pp. XXxI ff. 3. Epist., IV, p. 241. 4. Petrarch, Fam., Xxm, 20.

5. Epist., 1, p. 331. We have two manuscripts of Petrarch’s works (Vat. lat. 4518, 4519) that were owned and annotated by Lapo. The first contains Contra medicum invectivae; Epist. met.,1v; other poems; Vita sol.; De sui ignorantia; Sen., 17, 1-3. The second contains Rem. Could Coluccio have had copies of these manuscripts?

In his own letters he quotes or mentions all four of the prose treatises listed above.

Novati mentions two other manuscripts of Lapo still in existence: Laur. 61, 13 (letter of Niccolo Acciaiuoli) and Laur. S. Croce xxxv, sin. 10 (Petrarch, Fam. xuXVI), which passed to Tedaldo della Casa; F. Novati, II libro memoriale de’ figliuoli di M. Lapo da Castiglionchio (Bergamo, 1893; Nozze D’Ancona-Cassin).

HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM IN SALUTATI 43

ing the interests of the young and impressionable Coluccio. Years later he could remember it in detail.’

In spite of all this, Novati is quite wrong? in suggesting that Salutati was a member of the informal circle (Nelli calls it a school,

Cochin dignifies it with the term Petrarchan Academy), founded about 1348, which from time to time met at Nelli’s house, and

perhaps elsewhere, to talk about their idolized Petrarch. Nelli includes only Bruni, Forese Donati, Lapo, Zanobi, and Boccaccio.3 Coluccio is not mentioned at all in Nelli’s thirty letters. He was too young to belong to the circle in his formative years and he probably visited Florence only occasionally. He did not come to Florence to take up his residence there until years after Nelli’s death in 1363 and at best could have been present at few meetings

of the “Academy.” }

Dante, too, made his impression on our humanist but we cannot tell when that impression first made itself felt. It is quite obvious in any event that of all Salutati’s contemporaries and near contemporaries Petrarch had by far the most influence in encouraging his younger follower to study and imitate ancient literature. It is

clear, however, that even before he felt that influence he had already as a schoolboy taken the first steps — and more.

But in what has been said we have been dealing more with possibility than with fact. The extent and nature of the influence of

Pietro da Moglio, Petrarch, and others on the young Coluccio cannot be determined. The only definite information is in the letters to Nelli, and they probably belong to the end rather than the beginning or middle of the decisive decade in Coluccio’s life. On the other hand, we have good evidence that certain classical authors played a very significant role in shaping the interests of our humanist. In some of the earlier books that Coluccio acquired he entered the 1. Lab. Herc., pp. 483-486. The whole chapter is concerned with Zanobi’s lecture. 2. Giorn. stor. lett. ital., xx1 (1893), p. 404. Novati’s suggestion is based on evidence which I think I have demolished (Studies, p. 139). 3. Cochin, op. cit., p. Liv, etc. The detailed activities of the group are well brought out by Gius. Billanovich, Petrarca letterato (Rome, 1947), pp. 94 ff.

44 CHAPTER III date of accession. The earliest such book known to us is a copy of Priscian’s grammar, bought, as he states, in October, 1355.7 He also indicates that he bought Virgil, Lucan, and Horace at the same

time. The Priscian is filled with his notes and seems to have interested him in the problems of orthography. In a letter that Novati dates June, 1391, Coluccio says that he has been concerned with orthography for thirty-five years, i.e., since 1356.7 This is so close to the date of acquisition of the Priscian manuscript that it seems certain that he is alluding to the purchase of that manuscript, and that this is the “special meaning” that Novati thinks the date must have had for Coluccio but of which we — so Novati thought -

had no record. In another letter, undated, he tells us that he has been devoting his attention to orthography for forty-six years. The Virgil, Lucan, and Horace which he purchased at the same time as the Priscian have unfortunately not been found. It is obvious that these books, so essential to a humanist’s library, must have been

among his earliest acquisitions. Virgil remained one of his great favorites, as did Ovid (in the Metamorphoses). Of the latter he says: “I owe him much, for I had him as a sort of door and teacher when my passion for this sort of study first flared up as if by divine inspiration at the end of my adolescence. Although I had no one to advise me and heard no one discuss the matter, after Ovid came into

my hands, I of my own accord read all the poets and by divine gift, as it were, understood them.”* Elsewhere he calls Ovid a key

to poetry and its illuminator.’ The language of the first passage bears such similarities to that of his first letter about orthography that it seems desirable to juxtapose them, the letter being put first, with the pertinent words in italics. “Prefari volo me grandem natu, Dei digito et ingenio quod michi dederat duce, in hec studia .. . intrasse rudem, sine magistro et ferme 1. To be taken up later, as is true of other manuscripts mentioned in this chapter. 2. Epist., U, p. 279. For the date see my Studies, p. 222. 3. Epist., m1, p. 609. Novati dates it 1402 by comparison with the preceding letter but admits that in the two manuscripts in which this letter is found no other letters are later than 1399. If we could date it 1401, we would arrive at 1355 by subtracting forty-six. 4. Lab. Herc., p. 214, 21. 5. Ibid., p. 396, 8.

HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM IN SALUTATI 45

sine principio; nec tamen adhuc...errores puericia conceptos et adolescentia connutritos ... potuisse purgare.” “Multa quidem sibi [Ovidio] debeo, quem habui, cum primum hoc studio in fine mee adolescentie quasi divinitus excandui et accensus

sum, veluti ianuam et doctorem. Etenim nullo monitore previo nullumque penitus audiens a memet ipso cunctos poetas legi et, sicut a Deo datum est, intellexi, postquam noster Sulmonensis michi venit in manus.”’ The language seems to indicate that he obtained his Ovid about

the time that he became interested in orthography, ie., when he purchased his Priscian in 1355, after he had reached manhood. Probably it was the reading of Ovid that led him to purchase the

four manuscripts in 1355, for he states that Ovid was the door that led him to the reading and understanding of classical poetry. Thus we are justified in saying that it was Ovid who opened up vistas to Coluccio of the glorious Renaissance that was to come, that as a door he opened up the future through the past. In 1357 Coluccio purchased Ovid's Fasti in a Florence bookshop. From the letters to Nelli we know that in this decade he also read Valerius Maximus, Boethius’ Consolation, and Seneca’s letters to Lucilius. Of course he must have read much more during the years when he was not very busy in his notarial offices. We can imagine him pestering friends for the loan of books and spending all the

money he could spare from his small income in adding to his library. 1. Coluccio, who was a pupil of Pietro da Moglio at Bologna ca. 1345-50, states that this was “in adolescentia” and that when he reached “virili etate’ he was no longer at Bologna (Epist., 1, p. 115). Therefore the phrases “in fine mee adolescentie”

and “grandem natu’ in the two quotations in the text are probably indications that he is referring to the period after he left Bologna, i. e., after 1351. Again Coluccio, in speaking of the death of his son Piero at the age of twenty-nine, says of him: “re quidem iuvenis, etate vero iam extremi temporis adolescens” (Epist., m1, p. 401) and “adhuc adolescens nobis eripitur primo etatis flore” (p. 417). Coluccio himself was twenty-nine in 1360. In writing to Carlo Durazzo in 1381 (Epist., 0, pp. 20, 22) he says of Carlo (who was then twenty-six years old): “nondum finito adolescentie tue tempore” and “extrema adolescentia.” Coluccio was twenty-six in 1357. If we take the age of twenty-five as the end of adolescentia, in the mediaeval fashion, as Coluccio seems to do in m1, p. 66, l. 2, a date shortly before 1356 is indicated for the fine adolescentie, when he became interested in Ovid. So everything points to the period ca. 1353-57 as the beginning of his real interest in classical literature.

46 CHAPTER III After this brief summary of the humanistic influences to which Salutati was subjected in his youth, let us survey, in part anticipating detailed treatment in the following chapters, some of the humanistic attitudes he displayed in later years, and then consider what may be

called mediaeval elements in his thinking. For the point to be made here is that Salutati, even more than Petrarch, belongs to a transitional period between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance of the fifteenth century. The foremost humanistic trait of Coluccio was, of course, his admiration of ancient literature, both for its form and its content. It not only helped one write Latin more correctly, but gave one a knowledge of rhetoric, i.e., the ability to write convincingly, and an equipment of philosophic and other ideas. Coluccio took an interest in spelling and textual criticism. Following in Petrarch’s footsteps, he waged a vigorous campaign against the use of vos for tu in addressing an individual. But he protested against slavish imitations such as characterized some of the later humanists.’ Futhermore, he really read the ancient authors at first hand and rarcly depended on second-hand quotations from anthologies and from encyclopaedists like John of Salisbury and Vincent of Beauvais,

as so many mediaeval scholars did. He also had the same zest as Petrarch in searching for unknown ancient works and for better manuscripts of the books already familiar to him. Consequently he collected a fine library and helped familiarize his disciples with many books previously unknown. His careful reading led him to look for books that the ancient authors wrote about, including

those written in Greek.? Apparently Coluccio never acquired facility in Greek, though he outstripped Petrarch, but he was primarily responsible for bringing Manuel Chrysoloras to Florence

as a teacher of Greek and he encouraged his young disciples to translate Greek literature into Latin and thus had much to do with giving Greek literature to the western world. The humanists came to think of the ancient authors they read as 1. Epist., 1v, p. 148.

2. He learned the names of many writers from Priscian, as Petrarch did (Fam., Im, 18, 7).

HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM IN SALUTATI 47

intimate personal friends. Petrarch even wrote letters addressed to Cicero, Livy, and others, while Coluccio felt that the gift of a copy of Cicero’s letters made it possible for him to talk with Cicero.’ Like

others, Coluccio drew support from the ancients for his views on many subjects. In common with other humanists, Salutati had no use for schol-

asticism, which in his day was logic-chopping. He realized that scholasticism grew out of a Renaissance, the revival of Aristotle, but he asserted that contemporary schoolmen did not understand

remains of the earlier.

Aristotle. Thus the new revival of the classics criticized the ossified

Most striking among Coluccio’s mediaeval characteristics was his addiction to allegory, a word which seems to sum up much medi-

aeval literature better than any other single word. Coluccio can interpret allegorically as nimbly as anyone.” As to his Latin style, it still shows traces of mediaeval usage, though he endeavors to rid himself of them. Compared with some later humanists, his piety is more in keeping with the mediaeval tradition. We noted his use of allegory in the De laboribus, coupled, however, with a brilliant

display of classical quotations. In the De seculo there are few indications of the new humanism except for his more classical style and his classical references. Baron maintains that Coluccio became more “mediaeval” (i.e., conservative) as he grew older. Since most people do, we can grant there is something in this. But his examples do not prove his point

that Coluccio turned away from his earlier enthusiasm for the heroes of the Roman republic, such as the first Brutus.3 Baron says: “In Salutati’s letters of the 1390's and of around 1400, Brutus’ sternness toward his own sons is no more than an occasion to cast

suspicion on the once admired Roman public spirit. What on the surface had appeared to be devotion for the Respublica has revealed iteself to him as a mere product of vainglory. Salutati now charges 1. Epist., u, pp. 386-387. 2. Of course I am aware that allegory continued to be used in the later Renais-

sance and is still in great favor.

3. H. Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, 1 (Princeton, 1955), p. 94.

| 48 CHAPTER III that all those famous Romans, who met death for the patria with seemingly stout hearts, were in truth motivated by this vice of vainglory.” His first “proof” is in Epist., m, p. 116: “Credisne Brutum, Romane libertatis auctorem, ...aftectui rigorique paruisse iusticie, non potius cum salute patrie mundane laudis gloriam cogitasse?” (The significant words I have put in italics.) Coluccio then quotes Virgil (Aen., v1, 819-823): “Vincet amor patrie laundumque immensa cupido.” Coluccio does not derogate in the slightest from his esteem

for Brutus as the founder of Roman liberty, but for the particular need of this letter, he does interpret the laudable quality gloria of the pagans in the Christian sense of vainglory. Baron does not mention that five years later Coluccio quotes the same example and the same

Virgilian quotation.’ Ephialtes and Brutus are held up as the supreme examples of virtue, and this time nothing is said about vainglory. It is true that he uses the same quotation again to point out to the obstinate backslider Poggio that God is greater than anything human, even one’s patria.? No Christian could say anything different, and it is just an accident that Coluccio did not happen to say it earlier. The one example Baron cites of a supposedly earlier view (1369) is in a letter of consolation to Ugolino Orsini on the death of his father Napoleone.? Coluccio felt called upon to praise the father’s virtues — not to criticize his faults. In

other words, all statements need to be studied in context, as all philologians know. In the very same letter Coluccio praises Napoleone for remaining a widower. Two years after this letter was written Coluccio’s wife died, leaving a young son. Not long after he married again. Inconsistent? Not really; rather, we must allow for the particular circumstances of the letter of consolation, i.e., for the acts and character of Napoleone. Coluccio was no more opposed to a widower remarrying than he was to a man staying out of a monastery ~ which has a bearing, of course, on our discussion of the De seculo in Chapter II. E, Gilson is more concerned with the use of the terms “Middle Ages” and “Renaissance” than with the real issue in the De seculo, 1. Epist., Wl, p. 562. 2. Epist.,Iv, p. 164. 3. Epist., 1, p. 105.

HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM IN SALUTATI 49

though he agrees that rhetoric plays a part.’ Clearly these terms, being so general, are open to misunderstanding, as many other terms are. Shall we abandon the word “democracy” because the Russians use it in a different sense? Perhaps we should. At any rate, the Middle Ages included many different periods. Gilson objects to saying that scholasticism is part of the Middle Ages. Perhaps the

twelfth-century Renaissance is not either, nor the Carolingian Renaissance. Language is an imperfect instrument and causes many

misunderstandings and quarrels and even wars, but it is still an amazing instrument. As we look back from the vantage point of the present we sce that there are differences between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on the one hand and the twelfth and thirteenth on the other. We label the former humanistic, the latter mediaeval. Iam fully aware that humanistic elements appear in the earlier centuries and mediaeval elements in the later. In between, in

the fourteenth century, we find a fascinating kaleidoscope of mediaeval and humanistic traits in Coluccio Salutati.

1.In Archives d’ Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire da Moyen Age, XXv (1958), p. 72. 4

CHAPTER IV

THE DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE

CHAPTER IV

THE DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE The new learning had no easy time of it in fourteenth-century Italy. Both Petrarch and Boccaccio rose to its defense.’ Salutati, familiar as he was with their apologetic writings, felt called upon to follow

in their footsteps. His views are expounded chiefly in letters to Giuliano Zonarini, Giovanni da San Miniato and Giovanni Dominici, and in his De laboribus Herculis. In 1378 Zonarini, chancellor of Bologna, writing to his Florentine

colleague Coluccio, called Virgil a liar. Coluccio rushed to the , defense of “the prince of Roman eloquence and the most divine poet of them all.”? As to his being a pagan, so were the grammarians

Donatus and Priscian, whom Zonarini does not spurn, as well as Aristotle, Job, Seneca, and Cicero, who is the source of the art of rhetoric. Salutati admires Virgil for his wonderful style and the profundity of his thoughts —-a notably humanistic attitude. There is no danger of being converted to the pagan religion by reading poets, as there may have been when Christianity was young. As to the argument that one’s time could be used to better advantage

by reading Scripture, poetry too edifies the reader. By giving Christian application to lines of Virgil which he quotes he obtains

confirmation of the Trinity, the oneness of God, and eternal punishment. At this point Coluccio quotes a famous passage of Seneca’s, one that was frequently on the tongues of apologists of pagan literature: Seneca says that he goes into the camp of the enemy not as a deserter 1. Petrarch, Inv. in medic., 1,9; Fam., x, 4; Sen., Xl, 2; XV, 11; Boccaccio, Gen. deor., XIV-xv. For the last, see especially Charles G. Osgood, Boccaccio on Poetry (Princeton, 1930). J. Reginald O’Donnell C. S. B., “Coluccio Salutati on the PoetTeacher,” in Mediaeval Studies, xxu (1960), p. 240. 2. Epist., 1, p. 300. R. Coulon, Beati Iohannis Dominici Lucula Noctis (Paris, 1908), p. xxiv, and G. Bonacchi, Nel secolo dell’urmanesimo (Pistoia, 1932), p. 14, are quite wrong in assuming that “the prince of eloquence” is Cicero. This is what one would expect, but Salutati’s Latin clearly indicates that he means Virgil. Cf. Epist., m, p. 265: “(Vergilius) eloquentie Latine princeps.”

54 CHAPTER IV but as a scout.” This figurative language, in which Scneca refers to philosophic schools other than Stoicism, is applied by Coluccio to all pagan literature. So too by Giovanni Dominici,” of whom more later. Petrarch heads a small list of favorite books, nearly all pagan, with the words “libri mei peculiares” and then adds that he resorts to others not as a deserter but as a scout. Petrarch is more advanced

than Salutati in his humanistic thinking, for his own camp is filled with pagan books.’ What cannot be accepted as literally true in Virgil Coluccio interprets allegorically. Besides, he says, Jerome and Augustine frequently quote Virgil and other poets. Modern theologians, adds Coluccio, cannot understand these quotations and must, to their shame, seek out the aid of schoolboys who do. Humanistic education had evidently made progress. All that Coluccio asks for is tolerance: if Zonarini cannot bring himself to read Virgil, he might at least allow Coluccio to follow his taste. When Zonarini replied, Salutati did not answer but turned over

the correspondence to a colleague, Domenico Silvestri, who blasted Zonarini in a violent attack. Thereupon Zonarini wrote again to Coluccio, enclosing Silvestri’s letter. Coluccio then answered, with a show of surprise that is somewhat disingenuous, as it is obvious from Silvestri’s letter, which is extant, that he, Silvestri, had seen the entire previous correspondence between Coluccio and Zonarini.* Coluccio proceeds to calm Zonarini’s ruffled spirits and expresses the hope, as Silvestri had done, that the two combatants might become good friends. He points to the parallel hostility and eventual friendship of Jerome and Augustine. Then comes the really

important point, repeated from his previous letter: the difference between Zonarini and Silvestri is that the former favors the reading of Scripture to the complete exclusion of poetry; the latter does not think that either should be neglected. Other arguments are presented: poetry contains much truth, literal or allegorical. A long 1. Ep., 2, §. 2. Lucula noctis 8, 29 (Hunt). 3. See my Studies, p. 117. 4. Epist., 1, pp. 321, 322 n. (written in 1379).

THE DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE 55 passage is devoted to the interpretation of some lines in Virgil’s fourth Eclogue, which Zonarini had attacked because they implied that Christianity would not last. The interesting point is that this

antihumanist would not accept the common mediaeval interpretation of this poem as a prophecy of the coming of Christ. Finally, with Salutati’s remark that he is enclosing a letter from Silvestri, apologizing for his conduct, this quarrel, prophetic of others to come, is brought to an end. Nearly twenty years later, Salutati again comes to the defense of Virgil. First he answers a letter from the ruler of Faenza, who was puzzled by the marriage of Aeneas and Dido, for he thought that this was a stain on the character of Virgil’s hero.” Salutati urges that

Virgil emphasized extenuating circumstances: as a shipwrecked sailor Aeneas was in no position to reject the love that Dido, with Venus’ aid, fashioned for him. Besides, kings are not subject to the ordinary laws. Necessity, divinity, and legality together present a

strong justification. But most of all, Virgil wanted to portray among his hero’s other virtues, that of continence, as revealed by his obedience to the divine command to give up Dido. Besides, one must consider the laws and customs of ancient times, when polygamy was permitted. Finally, the whole episode must be in-

terpreted allegorically. Aeneas represents the soul; the first six

books represent the six ages of man, the third being that of adolescence, whose ways are unpredictable and erratic. The letter just summarized was written to aid a perplexed friend of Salutati’s and a lover of the Classics. In another letter Coluccio

takes sharp issue with a correspondent for criticizing the great Roman poet.? Yet this man, Iacopo della Massa Alidosi, was a 1. Epist., m1, p. 232, which Novati tentatively assigns to the year 1397. 2. Epist., m, p. 264, to which Novati gives the tentative date of 1398. He arrives at this by the position of the letter in one of the manuscripts (a rather uncertain criterion) and by the similarity of the subject matter to that of the letter just discussed. As a matter of fact, there are some striking verbal resemblances between this letter and that to Zonarini (Epist., 1, p. 300), a fact which might indicate that this letter was written nearer 1378 than 1398; cf., e.g., “eloquentie Latine princeps” (m, p. 265) and “Romane eloquentie principi’ (1, p. 300). But until other facts are brought to light it is probably safer to accept Novati’s date. In still another letter Salutati expresses his readiness to defend Virgil against any charge (m1, p. 322).

56 CHAPTER IV professor of literature and author of a speech made “ad commenda-

tionem poesis, contra eos qui dicunt poesim conducere homines qui in ea student ad paupertatem,” in which he called the Aeneid “angelicum poema.”* Perhaps Salutati converted him. At any rate,

Coluccio says that all who criticize Virgil are to be pitied. If one does not know enough to appreciate the poet he should at least

be impressed by the authority of those who have given him first place among poets. The particular point that Iacopo made was that, while Virgil wanted to exalt Augustus’ lineage by representing his ancestor Aeneas as the son of Venus, he really put a stain on his ancestry because Aeneas, born of a mortal and a goddess, was therefore an illegitimate child. Salutati in refutation cites the example of Hercules and others and quotes ancient authors to show that they considered descent from a god a high honor. Besides, the ancients believed that glory was achieved by deeds of virtue, not by inher-

ited blood. Furthermore, if the pagans did not know marriage in the Christian sense, none but descendants of Jacob can be called the offspring of legitimate marriage. Antiquity must be judged by its own standards, not ours. Anyway, Venus was the legitimate wife of Anchises! Coluccio makes the well-known mistake of producing

every possible argument, even those which nullify one another. Soon after, Salutati again came to the defense of Virgil, but this time his arguments take on a broader aspect and become a defense of poetry in general. He was led to express his views by the act of Carlo Malatesta in destroying or removing a statue of Virgil when he entered Mantua in 1397. The situation has its parallels, whether by chance or in part by design, with the Zonarini episode. Within a few weeks the well-known humanist, Pietro Paolo Vergerio, in a letter written at Bologna, violently inveighed against Malatesta’s

act. As the letter immediately received wide attention, it is altogether likely that a copy came to Coluccio’s notice. He also heard of

the horrendous deed from two friends in Bologna. One of them, 1. Vladimiro Zabughin, Vergilio nel Rinascimento italiano (Bologna, 1921), p. 138, n. §8, citing an unpublished Vatican manuscript. Zabughin (p. 118) confuses this man with Lodovico Alidosi, to whom Vergerio addressed his letter about Malatesta (see p. $7, n. I).

THE DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE $7 Pellegrino Zambeccari, was at the time a chancellor of Bologna along with Zonarini. How the two, who had diametrically opposed ideas on humanism, got along for ten years in the same office we do not know. Coluccio did not reply to Zambeccari until April

23, 1398, nearly eight months after the happenings at Mantua." J assume that Coluccio had seen the invective of the young and hotheaded Vergerio, which served for Coluccio much the same purpose as Silvestri’s inspired letter to Zonarini. The shrewd Florentine used other tactics. In writing to Zambeccari he pretended that the story was not true. If he had really believed that the report was false he would have ended his letter quickly instead of going

into a detailed defense of poetry. First Coluccio, in denying Malatesta’s alleged remark that all

poets are actors, offers his favorite definition of the poet’s function:

praise virtue and attack vice. Other familiar arguments are repeated: the implicit blessing given poets by the Church fathers who quote them; the consequent necessity of being able to understand

poetry in order to understand the Church fathers;? the beautiful style and the sparkling ideas of poetry; the allegorical interpretation of poetry, as of the Bible. He then reads Zambeccari a lecture on the necessity of testing rumors before making categorical statements, but in doing so he probably had his tongue in his cheek. Coluccio specifically states (p. 294) that he wants a copy of these

comments to reach Malatesta, not to have him correct his error (for he had committed none) but to strengthen his right purpose. Coluccio’s technique is the indirect one of shaming and flattering Malatesta into right views about pagan poetry; Vergerio had already made a direct attack. The rest of the letter is ostensibly meant 1. Epist., m1, p. 285. Novati finds it strange (p. 288 n.) that Coluccio does not mention Vergerio; I see the explanation in Coluccio’s conciliatory attitude toward Malatesta. Coulon, op. cit. (see note 2), p. xxxvii, falsely assuming that Coluccio knew nothing of the affair until he heard from Zambeccari, is forced to question the known fact that Vergerio’s invective had an immediate and wide circulation. For Vergerio’s letter see Leonardo Smith, Epistolario di Pier Paolo Vergerio (Rome, 1934), p. 189. 2. As in the first letter to Zonarini, he accuses some theologians of being so ignor-

ant that they have to ask schoolboys about the meaning of poetic passages. He goes

into greater detail here and obviously has specific cases in mind. ,

58 CHAPTER IV only for Zambeccari. It marks the end of a long correspondence on the younger man’s passion for a married woman. Coluccio quotes

Zambeccari’s last letter, in which he set forth his resolution to abandon his love affair and to turn to Christ and the Virgin Mary. Then our humanist proceeds to preach a long sermon that would satisfy the most religious, including the pious Malatesta,’ for whom it would seem that even this part of the letter was intended. Coluccio takes pains to quote Virgil not infrequently in the course of his

pietistic comments. This is not to say that he was insincere; he believed that one could be a humanist and a Christian at the same time, that piety and poetry could exist side by side, and he saw no harm in mixing the two elements in the attempt to convert Malatesta by stressing piety as well as by flattery. The letter then was intended for Malatesta as well as for the man to whom it was addressed. Coluccio may even have hoped to kill a third bird with his stone: did he suppose that Zambeccari would show the letter to his colleague in the chancellorship, that Zonarini with whom Coluccio had argued about Virgil many years earlier: Coluccio wrote one personal letter to Carlo Malatesta, but there is dispute whether it was sent before or after the one just discussed.’

It is questionable whether Coluccio would have written in this vein if the letter was sent after the one to Zambeccari. He begins by praising Malatesta for his humanitas, in which he excels not only princes but scholars. He observes that Cicero, among others, used this word for learning and morals. The rest of the letter recommends a friend for a position. This friend was a pupil of Petrarch’s, from whom he learned so much that he equals or excels all other scholars in interpreting either moralibus documentis, or history, which is a

picture of morals, or poetry. If this letter followed the other, the emphasis on morals was not a happy one, in view of Malatesta’s predilections, nor was the mention of Cicero on that point, for Cicero, according to Vergerio, was the object of attack by Malatesta, who contemptuously called him a “lawyer and a jester.” 1. For his piety see Epist., m, p. 294 and note. 2. Epist., m, p. $34, dated 1401 by Novati. But Masséra convinced me that it must have been written 1391-93 (Studies, pp. 233-234).

THE DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE 59 Giovanni da San Miniato started out as a poet and student of the

Classics, but as his talent did not equal his ambition he turned against them. It was not to be the last time the the enemies of the Classics received a recruit from those on the other side. About 1389 Giovanni wrote to Coluccio to express his dissatisfaction with

his life; the general nature of his letter we can only infer from Coluccio’s reply.’ Giovanni blamed poetry for his failure to achieve greater success, especially financial. Life had become mere drudg-

ery. Coluccio argues that without poetry Giovanni would not have achieved even that modicum of success which he attained. After all, Giovanni did become the secretary of a prince, a position he could not have held without his classical and literary training. The fault was in himself and his desire for wealth. After disposing of Giovanni in this fashion Coluccio devotes much of his letter to other critics.? His mention of Aristotle probably indicates that he has the scholastic opponents of the new humanism in mind. He maintains against them that poetry is one of the liberal arts. It praises virtue and attacks vice, as Aristotle says. It is of noble origin, for it owes its invention to the attempt to praise God in figurative language of unusual beauty. Just as Cicero says

that the orator should know everything, so Coluccio claims omniscience for the perfect poet. Hence the poet deserves the highest honors and positions. Above all he argues here as elsewhere along the familiar line that poetry is allegorical, like the Bible, and

that pagan poets received their inspiration from God. But Coluccio’s letter did not help Giovanni, for soon after he 1, Epist., 1, p. 221. The one manuscript that contains this letter names Giovanni da San Miniato as the addressee. Novati is quite wrong in rejecting this attribution

and in his late dating of the letter, as is readily apparent from the fact that in his De laboribus Herculis (p. 344, 1) Coluccio, in quoting from this letter, says that it was addressed to Iohannes ser Duccii, i.e., Giovanni da San Miniato. The point was cleared up by a student of mine, T. F. Rich (Speculum, x1 1936, p. 386); cf. my Studies, p. 229. An excellent biography of Giovanni, based in part on new materials, appears in Georg Dufner, Die “Moralia” Gregors des Grossen in ihren italienischen Volgarizzamenti (Padua, 1958), pp. 31-80. We differ in a few details.

2.It seems quite probable that he wrote the letter primarily for the wider audience. He begins by saying that he recently reread Giovanni's letter, which he presumably had received some time before. 3. He refers to the Poetics but the language of his quotation here and elsewhere shows that he knew this work in a translation of Averroes’ Arabic version.

60 CHAPTER IV went off to war, either from restlessness or desire for wealth or both. When the war was over he was apparently at loose ends and again discontented with life. At any rate he adopted Coluccio’s suggestion

to join the Camaldolensian order and entered the monastery of Saint Mary of the Angels, with which Coluccio had had close relations and for one of whose monks he had written his De seculo

et religione.' Then the looting in which Giovanni had engaged during the war preyed on his mind and he wrote to Coluccio to ask whether he should restore the booty to its owners.” Coluccio assured him that this was unnecessary and that he had done nothing wrong if he had not looted out of avarice. Giovanni could not entirely forget his earlier attack on poetry? and some years after entering the monastery he returned to the subject and tried to persuade Coluccio to abandon poetry.* Piety apparently sublimated his earlier dissatisfaction. Coluccio in reply elaborates his former argument that poetry is truth. The later letter differs from the earlier in the much greater emphasis on Christian tradition, obviously to fit Giovanni’s new status. Of all forms of expression, says Coluccio, poetry is closest to the Bible and to God himself. The Bible itself contains verse. He ends by inviting Giovanni to write again on this subject. Giovanni availed himself of this invitation and wrote to Salutati once more. Coluccio, being a busy man and getting on in years, did not reply. Then, several years later, Giovanni wrote to a young disciple of Coluccio’s, Angelo Corbinelli. In this letter, which is extant,’ he refers to his earlier discussion with Coluccio. Corbinelli

, showed Giovanni’s letter to his master Coluccio and then Coluccio took time to answer both of Giovanni’s letters, the earlier one addressed to him and the one to Corbinelli.° He reiterates his view 1. Epist., 1, p. 10 (see p. 26). 2. Epist., u, p. 462. It may be that the looting had been on his conscience for some time and had been a factor in his decision to enter monastic life. 3. So I infer from Epist., m1, p. 98. 4. Epist., m, p. 539. For the date see note 6. 5. Published in Studies, p. 279. 6. Epist., 1v, p. 170. The exact details are a matter of dispute. See my discussion in Studies, p. 279. The earlier letter was, I think, written in 1398 or 1399, the later in 1404 Or 1405.

THE DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE 61 that the essence of poetry is its figurative language, that Scripture is poetry because an ineffable God cannot be described literally, that

poetry, therefore, is not unsuited to a Christian. On the surface poetry is untruthful but underneath it contains the real truth, for it says one thing and means another. Besides, one finds quotations from pagan poets and philosophers in Jerome, Augustine, and in other highly respected fathers of the Church, where they shine like stars in heaven. In fact, the Church fathers, in their fight against paganism, used these quotations with greater effect than they did the Bible itself: Also, a knowledge of the enemy’s strategy is needed to fight him successfully. There may be danger in the philosophers on account of the subtlety of their arguments (and here we note a slight slap at scholasticism) but in the poets there is none. Truth is truth wherever you find it — in poetry or in theology. Lactantius, Augustine, Jerome, Basil prove the value of pagan literature. Coluccio mentions Leonardo Bruni’s translation of one of Basil’s homilies.

In the preface to this work, dedicated to Coluccio, Bruni says that

he chose this book for translation to provide added authority against the detractors of the humanities.’ After admitting that poetry and the liberal arts are a means, not an end, Coluccio pounces on Giovanni for inaccuracy and incomplete-

ness in citing Jerome. Coluccio the humanist was not satisfied to accept references at second hand. After a long search he found that the passage cited by Giovanni was in one of Jerome's letters, not in a sermon. Then, we must admit, he overinterprets Jerome's

“nec in eorum lectionibus requiescas” to imply that it is quite proper to read pagan literature if we do not stop there but go to higher things. But he is right in pointing out another passage in

which Jerome admits reading the pagans. The same fault of incomplete and therefore incorrect quotation is charged by Coluccio in the case of Giovanni’s reference to Augustine (Conf., 1, 17, 27), and here the charge is certainly unjustified. Augustine tells of his school training in paraphrasing a line of the Aeneid before a class 1. Novati makes the interesting and convincing suggestion that Bruni (of course with Coluccio’s encouragement) undertook the translation as a result of Giovanni's earlier attack (Epist., Iv, p. 185, n.).

62 CHAPTER IV and the applause with which his effort was greeted. All this, he says, is mere smoke and air. This remark applies not only to the desire to win applause, as Coluccio maintains, but to the entire educational procedure. He makes another charge of suppressio veri

in a quotation from Boethius, where Philosophy orders the meretricious Muses of poetry to leave (Cons., 1, 1, 27), but again his interpretation is scarcely justifiable. He thinks that Boethius means only those Muses of poetry which cause tears, but the author of the Consolation clearly indicates that Poetry should yield to Philosophy. A better argument would be that Boethius continues to intersperse poetry in his prose.’ The objection that pagan poetry tells of shameful and sinful deeds

Coluccio parries by saying that the Bible contains stories that are just as bad, and he gives a long list beginning with Eve and Cain. It is inconsistent, he maintains, to read without agitation the Biblical stories of rape and adultery and to condemn similar tales in the poets.

Both must be interpreted allegorically. The best defense of the most daring pagan poetry is the Song of Solomon. On the positive side Coluccio gives three reasons for reading the poets: their use of words in their proper senses, their embellished

diction, and their moral purpose in praising virtue and attacking vice — thus combining the Ciceronian (and Horatian) view of rhetorical style with Aristotle’s moral purpose. The argument that the verse form of parts of the Bible does not make them poetry and that this form is merely a tool for any to use Coluccio meets by saying that verse is a tool of poets alone, and quotes Jerome in substantiation. Then by a bit of the sophistry which he was so quick to see in others he asserts that the parts of the Bible that are in verse are not poems (though written by poets!) since a poem is fiction. The scholastic philosophers again come in for a share of criticism:

there are many philosophers, few poets. Poets are greater than 1. Salutati had interpreted Boethius the same way some years earlier in answering

a correspondent who was perplexed by Boethius’ inconsistency in apparently , abandoning poetry and then introducing verses again (Epist., m1, p. 482). The whole difficulty arises out of taking Boethius too literally and too seriously.

THE DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE 63 philosophers because they must know philosophy, but philosophers need not be familiar with poetry. The most formidable attack on Coluccio’s position came from a Dominican friar, later a cardinal, Giovanni Dominici, who wrote a big book on the subject, called Lucula noctis, “Firefly,” which he

dedicated to Coluccio.’ The two remained friendly in spite of

their differences. Coluccio had a hand in the action of the Florentine | authorities who in 1404 persuaded the Pope not to allow Bologna

to take Dominici away from Florence, in whose university he lectured on the Bible.? Coluccio no doubt respected and admired the religious zeal of this precursor of Savonarola — as Novati aptly calls him — for Coluccio was profoundly religious.3 He may have been stirred by Dominici’s fervor as he was by the Bianchi, whose exaltation, which spread like an infection, Coluccio describes with such sympathy and vividness.* What is more, Dominici’s return to his native Florence in 1399 had been caused by this same religious

movement of the Bianchi, for he had been exiled from Venice because he led a procession of the Bianchi in that city.5 Coluccio’s emotional reaction to the Bianchi may have caused him to welcome Dominici with especial enthusiasm. Novati suggests that Giovanni da San Miniato, feeling himself worsted by Coluccio, asked Dominici to take over.® This is indicated not only by Dominici’s familiarity with Coluccio’s last letter to the Camaldolite, which he quotes several times,” but especially by his remark that the origin of the quarrel (certamen) was over the question whether the reading of poetry harms the minds of boys, 1. Iohannis Dominici Lucula Noctis, ed. Edmund Hunt (Notre Dame, 1940). For the dedication copy of the Lucula noctis and other details see p. 201 and my Studies, p. 257.

2. Epist., tv, p. 8. | 3. See p. 90. 4. Epist., 11, pp. 355, 360. 5. A. Rosler, Cardinal Iohannes Dominici (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1893), p. 39.

6. Epist., tv, p. 205, n. Further evidence is the fact that Giovanni Dominici, though himself a Dominican, had close relations with the Camaldolites of St. Mary of the Angels, as we know from his attempt to settle a quarrel between that monastery and an offshoot from it (Epist., rv, p. 364). 7. Hunt, p. xi, n. 17.

64 CHAPTER IV young men, and the unwary.’ As the prime object of Giovanni da San Miniato had been to persuade first Coluccio and then Corbinelli

to abandon the reading of poetry,” it would seem that he had communicated his thoughts to Dominici. Dominici’s sic et non procedure is ostensibly highly objective: first he presents the case for the Classics in twelve chapters, then the case against them in thirty-five. By presenting the arguments of the

other side and smashing them at leisure he evidently hoped to silence his adversaries completely. He took his material in large part from Coluccio’s last letter to Giovanni da San Miniato. It may be of interest to review briefly the arguments for the Classics which he enumerates: 1. rulers and advisers of states must have a knowledge

of secular learning; 2.some pagan books strengthen Christian faith; 3. the truth is everywhere, even in the liberal arts, both the

trivium and the quadrivium; 4. Christians are not specifically fobidden the reading of secular literature; 5. secular literature is a good preparation for the study of the Bible; 6. secular literature is useful according to the doctors of the Church; 7. it is according

to nature to read the Classics; 8. pagan writers (including the poets) contribute to good morals, poetry praises virtue, the false and the wicked should be interpreted allegorically, as in the Bible; 9. Christians should know everything, but, since the Bible does not contain all knowledge, pagan literature must be read; 10. some philosophers are truthful and of good character and therefore should not be scorned; 11. pagan learning helps preserve the Faith; 12. Christians should make use of all that God has given for

human welfare, such as omens and dreams recorded in pagan literature.

Then Dominici proceeds to his major task of presenting the negative. First he states that a Christian should devote himself only 1. Hunt, 39, 84. Probably, then, Dominici’s statement (Prol. 65) that after considering all his illustrious contemporaries he picked Coluccio as a discerning judge, a real guide, and an outstanding teacher to whom to address his book is more complimentary than truthful. 2. For Coluccio see Epist., m1, p. $39; for Corbinelli, 1v, p. 170. The heading of Giovanni’s letter to Corbinelli contains these words: “epistola exhortatoria ut discedat a lectura poetarum et sacre pagine codicibus innitatur” (Studies, p. 251).

THE DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE 65 to those things which lead to blessedness, and that philosophy not only does not do so but generally interferes with such a pursuit. After

stopping to define terms, he makes a detailed answer to the first part. The greatest amount of space is given to the third, tenth, and ninth of the twelve arguments. His greatest distrust is of the poets, then of the ancient philosophers. His greatest fear is for the young; those who are strong in faith (and their number is small) may read the poets without harm. Dominici’s book apparently reached Coluccio in the autumn of 1405. In the months before his death in the following May he took the time to read it carefully, to enter his marks and comments, and to begin a reply. Novati has shown that this reply, written in the form of a letter, was not completed and was probably not sent.

Coluccio died in harness, defending his beloved studies. This letter and the immediately preceding one to Giovanni da San Mi~ niato are among the half dozen longest that Coluccio wrote; how Jong the unfinished one might have been we cannot guess. It actually

is not a letter but a monograph, for Salutati speaks of dividing his first tractatus (of two) into six chapters —a terminology which is appropriate to a book, not a letter, and one which he used in his De laboribus Herculis."

Coluccio’s first comment on Dominici’s book is that the crux of the question is whether faithful Christians may read secular liter1. The single manuscript which contains this letter must have been copied from the original, as Novati observes. It divides the main part into seven chapters (an introductory chapter and the six mentioned). Each has a title (for which see Novati’s apparatus). Certain characteristics, including the use of the word Rubrica at the end, lead me to think that the titles originated with Salutati. The heading at the beginning

(p. 205 in Novati) is in epistolary form, it is true, but two points are to be noted: : first, this is the only letter in this manuscript which contains Salutati’s name in the heading; second, Salutati uses the epistolary form in other treatises, as in the De verecundia (which takes the form of a letter answering one that precedes it in the manuscripts) and in the first edition of the De laboribus Herculis. Fortunately Novati, inconsistently treating this monograph as a letter, included it in his edition. Had he not done so I might not have discovered the dedication copy of Dominici’s book (see p. 201). The line between a letter and a tractatus was not a sharp one; apparently a treatise was often merely a fairly lengthy letter which achieved independence by being published separately. Epist., m1, p. 239, is called a tractatus in the heading. Dealing as it does with a popular subject, it is found in a number of manuscripts as a separate treatise. 5

66 CHAPTER IV ature. As he had made his position clear on this point in the letter to Giovanni da San Miniato and as Dominici agreed in part by

admitting that those confirmed in the faith may read pagan

| literature, there is scarcely any need to reply except for one thing: Dominici placed the intellect above the will, contrary to the view expressed by Coluccio in his De nobilitate legum et medicine.t There-

fore he will reply and will take the opportunity to express himself

on the other matter as well. He had not, however, reached the main point at all at the time of his death, a fact which gives some slight idea of the intended length of the letter. In opening the discussion of the propriety of the study of the Classics by Christians Coluccio changes Dominici’s wording slightly

but significantly: May children be introduced to pagan literature or must they start with the Bible: He divides this topic into six parts. First comes grammar, a knowledge of which is prerequisite to the reading of the Bible. Religious (and with this word he aims

a sly thrust at the friar Dominici) and others who are ignorant of grammar do not understand what they read and cannot write intelligibly for others. Under grammar he includes diction and power of expression — of course in Latin. His most telling point is introduced by the wish that all religious might be proficient enough in grammar to avoid barbarisms, solecisms, words in wrong senses, and other errors. Then, without indicating where they came from, he lists some twenty errors occurring in the Lucula noctis. The first is amusing though Coluccio is careful not to ridicule his adversary: it is in a sentence which mentions the cure of fever by the eating of five prunarum (“hot coals”) where Dominici should have said prunorum (“plums”). These and scores of other errors were marked by Coluccio in his copy of the Lucula; for his letter, he chose only the most glaring examples.’ The second chapter deals with dialectic, the second of the liberal arts. Christians must be familiar with it because it is a tool for finding the truth. It is just as necessary for the young faithful as arms are for the young soldier. The third chapter passes on to rhetoric, I. See p. 31. 2. See p. 201 and Studies, p. 257.

THE DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE 67 the importance of which for the young is argued chiefly from statements of Augustine. With the trivium thus disposed of, Coluccio devotes the fourth chapter to the quadrivium. First he argues, with the help of examples, that none of its four fields can injure one’s faith. Then he discusses the positive merits of each. In arithmetic he touches on one of his favorite themes, based largely on Boethius, the allegorical interpretation of numbers: the peculiarities of number 1 reflect the qualities of the one God, number 3 has its mystical implications, and so on. Geometry too has its mystic significance, for the cube and the triangle represent the Trinity. Music also mir-

rors the unity of God. Astronomy directs all creatures to their Creator.

The fifth chapter is devoted to poetry, which presupposes trivium, quadrivium, philosophy, all fields of knowledge, human and divine. But, says Coluccio, since poetry is closely associated with

the liberal arts he will treat it first.* After defining poetry, with special emphasis on its figurative nature, he repeats his earlier argument that poetry praises virtue and attacks vice and is therefore highly suitable for study by Christians. Besides, there have been Christian poets, such as Juvencus and Sedulius, so that there can be nothing vicious about poetry as such. His last chapter he devotes to his favorite theme that, just as pagan poetry, so the Bible must

be interpreted allegorically, not literally, for it is actually poetry in true perfection. In passing he criticizes mediaeval notions of rhetoric, with their emphasis on fine words and the rhythm of the cursus. A page is devoted to examples of allegory in the Bible, from

the creation in six days to the Song of Solomon and Job. Then follow examples of figurative (and threfore poetic) language. The whole Bible is mystic and allegorical. It even contains verse, as Jerome tells us. Coluccio ends this part of his letter with the words “quod quidem assumpseram demonstrandum” as if he had proved a proposition in geometry. They were to be his last words. The arrangement and amount of material in these six chapters is 1. He did not get to the discussion of “philosophiam omnem, humana divinaque, et omnes prorsus scientias” (Epist., Iv, p. 230, 8), which he postponed in favor of poetry—another clue to the probable length of the letter if it had been finished.

68 CHAPTER IV instructive. Each subject in the trivium is given a chapter but the

entire quadrivium is squeezed into one. Grammar is the most important subject of the trivium, rhetoric is next, to judge from the space given them.’ Poetry, to which two chapters are assigned, is the greatest of all the arts and sciences — and poetry, as we have seen, was the subject most feared by Dominici. All other arts are merely preparatory; poetry is the summation of all. Coluccio did not make poetry the eighth of the liberal arts, as Varro had given eighth and ninth places to medicine and architecture, for then it would have been only una multarum, at best prima inter pares, for in

his view the other arts are merely the handmaids of poetry. Philosophy too is its inferior. The short first edition of the De laboribus Herculis? opens with an indirect defense of poetry; its allegorical nature is explained and the unity of God under the many names that pagan poetry gives him is illustrated. When this was composed Coluccio had at best merely begun his series of encounters with enemies of the Classics and perhaps felt it unnecessary to say more. In the large second edition,?

however, the entire first book is devoted to poetry and the first chapter is “a compendious defense of poetry against its detractors.” Among these detractors are not only the vulgar mob but so-called

philosophers, who are not moved by the fact that their teacher Aristotle quotes poets. This is an obvious allusion to the scholastics.* He argues that Plato’s exclusion of poets from his ideal state applied only to comic poets and that real states actually honored poets. He explains that poetry originated in religion, since a poetic and figurative style was developed in exalting good men to the state of divinity. The allegorical (and therefore poetical) nature of the Bible is described in much the same language as in the last letter to Giovanni da San Miniato. Succeeding chapters indirectly continue the defense: the second, in defining poetry, gives prominence

to allegory; the third and fourth maintain that poetry is an art 1. By contrast Vincent of Beauvais in his Doctrinale (m1-111) devotes 193 chapters to grammar, 98 to logic, 10 to rhetoric, and 23 to what he calls poetica. - 2, Written before 1383 (see p. 22). _ 3. This work was left incomplete at Salutati’s death (see pp. 26, 69). 4. See p. 86.

THE DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE 69 made up out of all seven of the arts of the trivium and quadrivium. It alone can break down the departmental barriers of the seven liberal arts. In discussing the poet and his function (Chapters xu-xmm) Coluccio says that if, according to Cato’s definition, the orator is a “vir bonus dicendi peritus,” the poet is a “vir optimus laudandi vituperandique peritus.”

As Novati has shown, Coluccio was probably at work on his unfinished letter to Dominici when he died. It was not sent to Dominici and probably very few persons ever saw it. In its influence it was not an important document, except insofar as Coluccio may have discussed its contents with his younger disciples. Nor was the Lucula noctis very influential. We have the dedication copy and the official copy of Dominici’s monastery, S. Maria Novella, and only one other late copy. This may be due to Dominici’s failure to circulate it. Coulon suggests that Dominici became absorbed in other matters.’ It may be too that Dominici’s main purpose was to con-

vert Coluccio and when the latter died, the author of the Lucula noctis lost interest in his work. Nor did the incomplete De laboribus Herculis have any wide circulation. It is the last letter to Giovanni da San Miniato that brought Coluccio’s views on humanism to the greatest number of persons. Besides being represented in a number

of extant manuscripts it was translated into Italian early in the fifteenth century. One very important conclusion may be drawn from these controversies. In both letters to Zonarini Coluccio pleads for tolerance for the Classics. The object of Giovanni da San Miniato was to per-

suade Coluccio and Corbinelli to abandon the reading of poetry; | Dominici called attention to this origin of the discussion. It is quite

obvious that Dominici hoped to convert Coluccio. The latter, on , the other hand, says to Dominici: “I am confident that though you stick to your opinions you will not laugh at one who thinks otherwise.” Dominici the religious zealot can see only one side; it is the humanist who asks for tolerance. Men like Zonarini, Giovanni da San Miniato, and Dominici can-

not be called typical examples of mediaevalism. From the human- , 1. In his edition of the Lucula, p. Ixxix.

70 CHAPTER IV ist’s point of view they were much more dangerous enemies of the Classics. The Middle Ages in general tolerated the Classics, cspecially when interpreted allegorically. The opponents of Coluccio were brought up in the scholastic tradition which grew out of the earlier classical revival based on Aristotle. Dominici especially, the most

formidable of these opponents, was a Dominican nurtured on Thomas Aquinas, but he had retained only the dialectic of Aristotelianism, none of its humanism. Coluccio and other humanists disdained scholasticism, but in this case the fight was against men of strong religious faith who believed that religion was endangered by

pagan literature, not against schoolmen as such. What is not always realized is that there was a rebirth of religious fervor as well as of enthusiasm for the Classics in thirteenth and fourteenthcentury Italy. Not the Muses alone woke up in the time of Dante, as Sicco Polenton puts it,’ but Religion too was stirring. The two

movements tended to interfere with each other. Thus humanism had to fight not only mediaeval indifference but religious fanaticism

too —not to mention other factors. To us, of course, Coluccio’s defense of the Classics (like Petrarch’s and Boccaccio’s) is not at all convincing. It shows very clearly that

the early humanists continued in many respects to think in mediaeval terms. Perhaps no one phenomenon is more characteristic of the Middle Ages than the allegorical interpretation of poetry; yet no

one accepts it more wholeheartedly than Coluccio.? The appeal to the Bible and to the Church fathers in defense of the Classics is

familiar throughout the mediaeval period. The whole controversy is of interest to us merely in showing that early humanism did not mark a sharp break with the Middle Ages and that the literary Renaissance had to contend with the rebirth of other manifestations

of the human spirit.

1. Sicconis Polentoni Scriptorum illustrium Latinae linguae libri XVIII, ed. B. L. Ullman (Rome, 1928), p. Xv. 2.In the De laboribus Herculis (see p. 23).

CHAPTER V

SALUTATI’S SOCIAL AND | POLITICAL VIEWS

CHAPTER V

SALUTATIS SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS One of the characteristics of Salutati as of his fellow humanists was

the desire to put into practice some of the ideas furnished by his reading. His attitude toward his fellow men was largely determined by the Bible and the Stoic doctrines of Seneca. Thus one reason for his objection to the plural vos is that it implied inequality. In the same way and often in the same letters he objects to being called dominus,* for that implies that his correspondent is a slave. There is only one Master, he says, and we are all fellow servants in Christ.

He prefers to be called a friend, for a friend, according to Cicero and Aristotle, is one’s alter ego. Friendship means equality, and in it there should be no master. Coluccio’s letters have so much to say about friendship that we have a right to assume from the number of times that he speaks of it, even if we discount his actual words, that it played an important part in his life. His constant and lengthy appeals to his correspondents not to flatter or even praise him but to credit any accomplishments of his to God furnish an insight into one phase of his character.

The humility seems to be a genuine product of his piety. Salutati’s remarks on nobility have a similar significance. He maintains that genuine nobility depends on virtue, not blood.? He agrees with Dante that where there is virtue there is nobility, but

argues that the opposite is not true. A perplexed correspondent thought this meant that no commoner could be virtuous! Disagree-

ing with Aristotle and quoting Seneca, Salutati comments that real nobility, based on virtue, is possible for slave and free, rich and poor, rulers and subjects. Nobility in the ordinary sense of rank rests on fortune, not virtue.3 Such nobility Coluccio seems to disparage.*

He frequently expresses disdain for the nobles who spend their I. Epist., U, p. 163; W, p. 376. 2. De nobilitate, 1. 3. Epist., wm, p. 644 ff. 4. Epist., 1, pp. §6-57; Ul, p. 270, etc.

74 CHAPTER V time in the typical noble occupations of hunting, fighting, gaming,

riding, sports, and the pursuit of wealth and pleasure, and is delighted and surprised when he finds an exception among them." Coupled with this attitude is a similar one towards dignitaries of the Church who fail to live up to the moral responsibilities of their

offices. It would be wrong, however, to say that Salutati was an outspoken democrat; he got along with the Florentine nobles as with the proletarian Ciompi. His belief in noblesse oblige in itself shows a tolerance of class distinctions. Differences in rank were the result of chance but none the less real for all that. Some are born to

rule, others to serve.” The humanist too has his moral responsibilities. This may be seen from his definition of humanitas as moral learning: “humanitatis,

hoc est eruditionis moralis.”3 That explains how he comes to equate the study of literature (i.e., humanitas) with virtue: “virtuti vel studio litterarum.”* Thus it is implied that the humanist must have a moral purpose in his studies. As he writes to Boccaccio,’ he

wants to go to the papal court, not to make money but to write something which will aid toward achieving better things. Coluccio often criticizes the struggle for wealth as an obstacle to humanistic pursuits.° He scolds Pietro Turchi for advising a young friend to abandon literary pursuits in favor of making money in a notarial career.” As it happens, this young man, Piero di ser Mino, by an irony of fate, succeeded Coluccio as chancellor of Florence soon after Coluccio’s death, only to die a year and a half later. Coluccio’s criticism of seeking wealth is not the same as the attacks of others on this vice, but is based on the fact that it takes time away from literary activities, as do the hunting, fighting, sports, etc., of the nobles.

Politically Salutati followed in the tradition of Dante and Pe1. Epist., 1, pp. 51, 105, 176, 256; U, p. 203; Il, p. 600, etc. 2. De tyranno, 4, 16.

3. Epist., 1, p. §17. 4. Epist., 1, p. 122; cf. 1, pp. 51, 53, 55, 57, 58, 70, of the writing of poetry. 5. Epist., 1, p. 49. 6. Epist., 1, p. 255, etc.

7. Epist., 1, pp. $31, 556 ff. ,

SALUTATI?S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS 7§ trarch.* The political problem was rather complicated for him and his contemporaries, as it involved Florence, Italy, the Empire, and the Church. The loyalty of this adopted son to Florence was greater than that of its famous exiled citizens, Dante and Petrarch. He was

proud of her world-wide preeminence.* Accepting the current attitude of Florentines that they were of Roman origin, he said: “What is it to be a Florentine except to be, both by birth and by law, a Roman citizen and consequently a free man and not a slave?”3 The extreme form of this attitude is indicated by the Milanese Uberto Decembrio, who, in writing Salutati in 1393, asserts that Florence alone among Italian and foreign states preserves

the glory of the ruined city of Rome.‘ There is truth as well as exaggeration in this statement, for after the collapse of Cola di Rienzo’s movement and the development of the Schism, the city of Rome reached its nadir.5 Salutati is represented by Leonardo Bruni as approving the latter’s eulogy of Florence and as maintaining that neither Rome nor Athens nor Syracuse were ever as neat

and clean as Florence.° : Coluccio was aware of Italian oneness, as Dante was, and talks

of the Italian nation, Italian blood, and Italian race. During the war with Gregory XI he seems to have entertained hopes of uniting all Italy. In the many letters that he wrote to other Italian states 1. For Dante see Charles Till Davis, Dante and The Idea of Rome (Oxford, 1957) and the review by Ernest H. Kantorowicz in Speculum, xxxIv (1959), p. 103. 2. Epist., Ul, p. 192. 3. Invectiva in Antonium Luscum (Florence, 1826), p. 54. Cf. Rigacci, 1, p. 143: “Nos autem tamquam verum Romanum genus et qui a tantis descendisse viris merito gloriamur.” The importance of this attitude in Florentine thought is brought out

by N. Rubinstein, “The Beginnings of Political Thought in Florence,” Journ. Warburg and Courtauld Inst., v (1942), p. 198. As in other respects, Coluccio antici-

pates and probably is responsible for the Roman origin of Florentine liberty

sance, 1 (Princeton, 1955), p. 50. : expounded by Bruni, as set forth by H. Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renais-

4.In a letter published by Novati in Arch. stor. lomb., Ser. Iv, 10 (1908), p. 196. 5. In passing it may be noted that so ardent a Florentine as Salutati would be less enthusiastic about Rienzo than the Florentine exile Petrarch was. The Florentine historian G. Villani called Rienzo’s undertaking fantastic. Cf. K. Burdach, Vom Mittelalter zur Reformation, 0. 1 (Berlin, 1928), p. 537. 6. Leonardi Aretini ad Petrum Istrum dialogus, in T. Klette, Beitrdge zur Geschichte und Litteratur der italienischen Gelehrtenrenaissance, 1 (Greifswald, 1889), p. 67.

76 CHAPTER V he kept hammering away on the idea of liberty and freedom from foreign domination and of the kinship of all who were of Italian blood.* He urges them to remember that they are Italians and that it was among Italians that liberty first sprouted, while other nations lay prostrate under the heels of kings. It is glorious to live in liberty but most glorious ofall to bring sweet liberty into being — a thought which may be novel to those of us who have enjoyed the blessings of liberty and taken it for granted, who have not felt the thrill of

achievement. It may be that the high regard for liberty was the result of economic and political developments in the Italian communes, as many maintain, but there is no question that the humanists constantly supplied new fuel from their classical reading for liberty’s flame. What would Salutati’s plan for governing Italy have been if the war with the Pope had been successful? We can only guess, but his love for Florence suggests that he might have favored a federation of autonomous states, perhaps under the nominal rule of a limited monarch.

We can see Salutati’s hand in the reply of the Florentines to Bernabd Visconti’s proposal of a federal league in 1380. Bernabd

had in mind merely a defensive league limited to some north Italian states, primarily directed against the foreign military companies. The Florentine reply, reminiscent of Salutati’s letters of

1378, spoke of a “Latini nominis societatem” and commended Bernabo for his alertness in respect to the honor and advantage of the “entire Latin name.” Salutati took personal part in the negotiations, going to Lucca to discuss the league with the officials there.’ Salutati’s ideas of government are best set forth in a letter of 1381

1. Epist., 11, p. 353; Rigacci, I, pp. 87, 100, 161. See Chap. 1, and p. 13,n. 1. Similar language is used by him in the war against the French in 1384 (Rigacci, I, p. 129). In 1380 in an official letter he wrote to the Romans that he favored a league in which all Italy would join, “tamquam membra cum capite” (A. Wesselofsky, Il Paradiso degli Alberti, 1, 1 [Bologna, 1867], p. 302). 2. G. Collino in R. Acc. Scienze Torino, Memorie, Ser. 1, 54, 2 (1904), pp. 149, 151. Cf. G. Seregni in Arch. stor. lomb., Ser. Iv, 15 (1911), p. 163. For the phraseology cf. “Latini nominis viros” in Rigacci, I, p. 87. 3. Seregni, ibid., p. 177.

SALUTATI’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS 77

to Charles of Durazzo, King of Naples,’ and in his De tyranno. The former really belongs to the voluminous ancient and mediaeval literature on the education of princes. It indicates a parallel to and may have been inspired by Petrarch’s relations with King Robert of Naples.? Coluccio tells the king that laws should be passed, not in the interest of the ruler, but of his subjects and the public good, with

the consent of the governed. He reminds the sovereign that he is governing free men, not slaves. It may be that Salutati had hopes that Carlo might become the enlightened monarch who would unite all Italy, for it was in the preceding three years that Salutati’s hopes for a united Italy were highest. Most of all, however, he wanted the king to put an end to the Schism. Coluccio’s conclusion in the De tyranno is that monarchy is the best form of government if the monarch is good and wise: “Nonne politicum est et omnium sapientum sententiis diffmitum monarchiam omnibus rerum publicarum conditionibus preferendam, si tamen contingat virum bonum et studiosum sapientie presidere? Nulla libertas maior quam optimo principi cum iusta precipiat obedire” (4, 14). Thus he reconciles liberty and monarchy. Yet that Italy should have a monarch is not a necessary inference. During the Republic and the early Roman Empire Italy had no separate governments, since it was regarded in effect as an extension

of the city of Rome. Not being a province, it had no proconsular or other governor as did Gaul, Spain, and the other provinces. A restoration of the ancient Roman Empire, as distinguished from the Holy Roman Empire, would obviate the necessity of a central-

ized Italian administration and would have the further advantage, ]

complete autonomy. } from Salutati’s point of view, of allowing the communes almost

1. Epist., U, p. 11. There are several more manuscripts of this letter extant than Novati mentions, a fact which not only shows the interest it created but perhaps invalidates Novati’s inference that it was not sent because unfinished (Studies, p. 216).

2. Actually Petrarch’s letter to Francesco da Carrara (Sen., xIv, 1) is a better parallel; cf. A. Steiner, “Petrarch’s Optimus Princeps,” in The Romanic Review, XxXv (1934), p. 99.

3. See also Ercole’s introduction, translated into Italian, in his Da Bartolo al-

l’ Althusio (Florence, 1932).

78 CHAPTER V Salutati’s attitude toward the Holy Roman Empire was colored by his classical reading. In the first place, he considered the Italians as descendants and heirs of the ancient Romans.’ Even though the Emperor was not an Italian he represented the best immediate hope of a uniting force that would allow a great deal of autonomy and independence to its units. Whether Salutati realized that this was true of the ancient Roman Empire we cannot say. The Emperor was useful as a foil to the Pope and at the same time as the Pope’s

temporal sword. For we cannot separate our discussion of the Empire from that of the Papacy. Like others, Salutati believed in the separation of temporal and spiritual power. Yet, though the Pope should not himself wield the sword, the Emperor should receive it from his hand. The best indication of Salutati’s attitude is in his letter to Boccaccio in 1369, in which he describes with much emotion the entry of Charles IV — “now at last ours” — into Rome

to pay his respects to the Pope.? He is filled with enthusiasm over

the sight of the two “rulers of the world” meeting in such harmony. Though he is aware of various unfavorable interpretations of the event he prefers to take it for what it purports to be. He is particularly struck by the Emperor’s humility and his reverence for the sacred soil of Rome. In describing the joy of the inhabitants of

Rome, he cannot refrain from quoting Virgil (Aen., 1, 282): “Romanos, rerum dominos, gentemque togatam.” This significant

sentence reveals his real attitude: as in other respects, he was a combination of ancient Roman and mediaeval Christian. As a Christian he rejoices in seeing the flesh, in the guise of the Emperor,

yielding to the will of the spirit, exemplified by the Pope. As a humanist, he is thrilled by the fact that the ceremony takes place in Rome. If the Emperor could have been an Italian — a Florentine, let us say — the joy of Salutati would have been unbounded.

It is no surprise to learn that Salutati was overjoyed when Urban V, though born a Frenchman, moved the papal court to Rome? or that he was chagrined when Urban went back to Avi1. Epist., u, pp. 85 ff. 2. Epist., 1, p. 86. Cf. Dante and Henry VII, Petrarch and this same Charles IV. 3. Epist., 1, pp. 80 ff.

SALUTATI’?S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS 79

enon.’ The Great Schism caused him much sorrow and concern. He made many efforts to settle it; some of his lengthy letters on the | subject attracted wide attention.? Immediately after the antipope was elected in 1378 Salutati addressed a vigorous letter to the French cardinals responsible for the Schism.3? Two years later he wrote a letter, in the name of Florence but obviously in accordance with his

own feelings, to Cardinal Corsini, previously bishop of Florence,

who had gone over to the Avignon pope, urging him to return to the fold of Urban VI.* His hopes of getting Charles of Durazzo, King of Naples, to bring the Schism to an end have already been mentioned. Years later the antipope Benedict XIII wrote Salutati a personal letter in which he expressed his desire to patch up the Schism and to secure Coluccio’s assistance.’ In 1397 the Diet of Frankfurt raised Coluccio’s hopes, and once more he took his pen in hand, writing to the Margrave of Moravia, one of the delegates.° At the end he makes clear that the letter was intended also for other princes attending the Frankfurt Congress. Of greatest interest to us is his warning that the split imperils all western Christianity. The Turks especially will bear watching, he says: they believe that they can destroy Christianity and even invade Italy. They train boys of

ten and twelve for war, accustoming them to outdoor life, the simplest of foods, extreme heat and cold, and all sorts of hardships, while the West is given to soft living. They teach them that to die

in battle is the surest way of joining God. “Believe me,” writes Salutati, “unless God interferes and unless you and others take proper preacautions these people will achieve greater success than

you think.” This prophetic warning was written fifty-six years before the capture of Constantinople, and eighty-four years before

the death of Mohammed II, who had initiated his plan of invading Italy by the capture and destruction of Otranto in 1480. In this letter Salutati does not press his earlier view that the election of the first Avignon pope was illegal but accepts and urges

the proposal that both popes resign and allow the college of cardinals to make a new choice. 1. Epist.,1, pp. 140 ff. 2.Seep.21. 3. Rigacci,1I, p. 18. 4. Rigacci,1, p. 39. §. Epist., wm, p. $3. 6. Epist., m1, p. 197.

80 CHAPTER V Though nothing came of it, this letter added to Salutati’s widespread fame as a sincere champion of Christian unity. In 1399 Charles VI of France referred to it in a letter to the Florentines.' Undaunted by his many failures, Salutati once more addressed himself to the problem in a letter to Innocent VII, written a few months after the latter’s election to the Roman pontificate in 1404.? At the time of this election all the cardinals had solemnly sworn to do everything in their power to end the Schism. Salutati’s hopes,

raised high by this promise, were dashed as month succeeded month without action. His letter to Innocent, polite and respectful though it is, carries a cold warning. The Pope is reminded that he, like the other cardinals, had signed the solemn promise. Salutati defines “fides” etymologically, morally, and Icgally. Supremely confident of the righteousness and importance of his views, he addresses the Pope as the Pope might speak to an erring parish priest.

Salutati, like so many others, cherished the idea of a united Christianity in which individual states might have a maximum of independence. This feeling, coupled with his Italianism, occasional-

ly led him to denounce or criticize peoples who prevented or seemed to prevent the realization of his hopes. First the Avignon exile and then the Schism naturally irritated him against the French. He approves of Petrarch’s strictures on Gallic morals, intended to keep Urban V at Rome, but remarks that the severity of Petrarch’s condemnation has roused the French cardinals and may accentuate the rift between French and Italians.3 Petrarch had criticized Urban and his fellow Frenchmen for importing French wines into Italy, thus insulting the Italian product. The cardinals, Salutati reports, retort by citing French superiority in many respects; they point with pride to Paris and other cities, they claim supremacy in music, mechanics, and theology, centered at the great University of Paris, to which even Italian students flock. They also proclaim Italian character defects: Roman rudeness, Genovese arrogance, Florentine avarice, etc. Salutati remarks that Italy too has great cities and universities, and that the French character has its defects, as, for example, its levitas, “lack of seriousness.” Similarly, when Urban V 1. Epist.,1V, p. 44. 2. Epist.,1v, p. 42. 3. Epist., 1, p. 73.

SALUTATI’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS 81

abandoned Rome for Avignon Salutati thinks that it may be due to his native fickleness." Avignon was, of course, the western Babylon, a vicious place.? The Florentine war with Gregory XI (1375-1378) intensified Salutati’s anti-French feeling, for Gregory

used French troops who came to loot Italy. But the prejudice against the French shows itself in other ways too. In France and Spain the men loll at ease, gorging themselves and getting drunk, while the women do all the work.* Even the French language shares in the criticism: the French, supposedly so polite, have all but abandoned the singular of the first and second persons.’ The barbarism of French is shown too by the spelling ch, as in chivalier.° British barbarism is reflected in scholastic philo-

sophy.? To the Germans he applies the phrase “Teutonic savagery” (feritas). Yet all this should not be overinterpreted for there are evidences of good will towards the foreigners with whom he

corresponded. All we can say is that Salutati was first of all an Italian.

1. Epist.,1, p. 141. 2. Epist.,1, p. 80. 3. Epist.,1, p.216. 4. Epzst., mi, p. $94. 5. Epist., 0, p. 413. 6. Epist.,Iv, p. 220. 7. See p. 86. 6

CHAPTER VI | SALUTATI’S PHILOSOPHY

AND RELIGION

°

«

CHAPTER VI

SALUTATI’S PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION The word philosophy is used in its very widest sense by many writers on the Renaissance. It includes not only religion and theology but the topics discussed in the preceding chapter, in fact, all ideas and attitudes.’ In this chapter I shall deal with the term in its narrower sense, and even so, as in the preceding chapter, present only an outline as a background.

Coluccio gives his own definition of philosophy in lauding Petrarch as a philosopher: “Non dico in hac quam moderni sophiste ventosa iactatione inani et impudente garrulitate mirantur in scolis, sed in ea que animos excolit, virtutes edificat, vitiorum sordes eluit, rerumque omnium, omissis disputationum ambagibus, veritatem

elucidat.”? The “modern sophists” are, of course, the scholastic philosophers. It is interesting to note the implication that they were

not in search of the truth but, like the ancient sophists, merely wanted to win their arguments. The difference between them is that the ancients used rhetoric, in the main, the schoolmen used dialectic. The emphasis on seeking the truth came in with the sophoi, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and it is the tool of dialectic

which the last-named sharpened in hunting for the truth. Now some of the schoolmen were accused of diverting dialectic from the

search for truth to winning their argument. Thus we come to a complete reversal, almost the peripety of a Greek tragedy: The

new sophists do not operate with rhetoric like their ancient predecessors, but with dialectic; the new humanistic philosophers

are not, like the ancients, dialecticians, but rhetoricians! | It may be a surprise to some that Petrarch was regarded as the

1. E. Garin’s many articles and books are especially helpful, e.g., La cultura filosofica del rinascimento italiano (Florence, 1961). See also Matteo Iannizzotto, Saggio sulla filosofia di Coluccio Salutati (Padua, 1959); Nesca A. Robb, Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance (London, 1935), pp. 34 ff.; Carlo Angeleri, Il problema religioso del rinascimento (Florence, 1952; bibliography); Giuseppe Saitta, I] pensiero italiano nell’umanesimo e nel rinascimento, 1 (Bologna, 1949), p. 145; Giuseppe M. Sciacca, La visione della vita nell’umanesimo e Coluccio Salutati (Palermo, 1954). 2. Epist., 1, p. 179.

86 CHAPTER VI prince of philosophers, and the same was said of Coluccio by Vergerio.* The philosophy in which they were interested was ethics,

not logic or metaphysics, though Coluccio could hurl a mean syllogism in behalf of his beloved studies. It is no doubt an oversimplification to say that one aspect of the Renaissance was the overthrow of Aristotelianism by Platonism. Yet essentially that is true. Petrarch, Boccaccio, Salutati all had a hand in this bouleversement. To be sure, they knew Plato directly only from Latin translations of the Timaeus and the Phaedo. Even

these were not acquired by Salutati until the early 1400's. The Meno had been translated but was not known to Salutati. Like Petrarch, he knew Plato chiefly at second hand from ancient authors, notably Cicero, Apuleius, Macrobius, and Augustine.? He also used a Platonic essay by a certain Alcidius, still unpublished.’

The interest in Plato was transmitted by Coluccio to Leonardo Bruni, who began making new translations at his teacher’s urging.

To Coluccio, therefore, must go much of the credit for getting the strong Platonic movement started in Florence, as for many other phases of humanism.

Aristotle had been the center of a classical revival in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Aristotelianism became a rigid

logical system in the fourteenth century. Though Plato supplanted Aristotle in philosophy in the period of the new humanism, it was Cicero who became the center of this revival and Ciceronianism with its linguistic and rhetorical restrictions that dominated the

Jater Renaissance in somewhat the same way as the Aristotelian dialectic of the schoolmen dominated the fourteenth century. The grammar and rhetoric of the trivium triumphed over the logic. The attack on the schoolmen by Petrarch and Coluccio was directed especially against their British representatives. Petrarch 1. Princeps philosophorum huius seculi ; Epistolario di Pier Paolo Vergerio, ed. L. Smith

(Rome, 1934), p. 62; cf. p. $5. 2. See especially Raymond Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition during the Middle Ages (London, 1939), p. 22; Revilo P. Oliver, “Plato and Salutati,” in Transactions of the American Philological Association, LXx1 (1940), p. 315.

3. E. Garin, Cultura, p. 96, and his earlier work cited there. See p. 169 for Coluccio’s manuscript.

SALUTATI?S PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION 87 is particularly violent, saying that islands (Sicily, Britain) seemed to

be especially subject to this plague. Sicily had suffered from the Cyclopes and the tyrants, now it is beset by these new monsters, armed with syllogisms.’ As usual, Coluccio is less vehement than Petrarch, but he too objects to British scholastic dialectic.? Though neither quotes Aristotle a great deal, it is not the philosopher him-

self to whom they object but the Aristotelians of their own day. In | fact, Coluccio often calls Aristotle the princeps philosophorum. In the

case of both humanists it is clear that the battle was between scholastic philosophy and poetry; Coluccio starts his “defense of poetry against its detractors” on the first page of his De laboribus Herculis by attacking the British scholastics and charging them with failure to read and understand Aristotle. A strong strain of Stoicism, emanating from Seneca and Cicero,

appears in Salutati. This, however, is assimilated with Christian ethics. Seneca is to him the moral philosopher. In one of his earliest letters he calls him morum preceptor,3 then ille morum preceptor et incomparabilis Anneus Seneca,‘ later ethicus,3’ and summum moralitatis antistitem.°

Yet Salutati was not really a philosopher, much less a Platonist. He had no systematic philosophy of his own, except for traditional Christianity, with which he fused pagan ideas, notably some that

originated in Stoicism, which comes so close to Christianity in many respects. In the same way he accepted some of Plato’s ideas,

since he saw from the example of Augustine and other Church Fathers that they could be reconciled with Christianity. On one point he certainly would have disagreed with Plato, that of barring 1. Famt., 1, 7; cf. 1, 12.

2. Lab. Herc., p. 3; cf. Epist., m1, pp. 319-320, 439; U, p. 295, I, p. 34. The same criticisms are to be found in Leonardo Bruni: T. Klette, Beitrdge zur Geschichte und Litteratur der italienischen Gelehrtenrenaissance, u (Greifswald, 1889), pp. 50 ff. See Eugenio Garin, “La cultura fiorentina nella seconda meta del 300 e i ‘barbari britanni’,’ La Rassegna della Ietteratura italiana, 64 (1960), p. 181. 3. Epist., Iv, p. 242. 4. Epist., 1, p. $7. 5. Epist., 1, p. 131.

6. Epist., ul, p. 649. Novati thinks Aristotle is meant but the letter itself points to Seneca. Besides, Aristotle is always philosophus or princeps philosophorum, never ethicus, etc.

88 CHAPTER VI poets from the ideal state. For one thing Coluccio was too practical a man to set up a Utopia; he wanted the best possible state that could be realized. But chiefly he made poetry the center of his system, to which all seven of the liberal arts were handmaidens, as we saw in Chapter IV. We can but speculate what would have happened if

Coluccio had read the Republic and discovered that poets were excluded from the ideal state, that only hymns were to be allowed, and that Homer’s epics were barred by the censor because young minds cannot distinguish between the literal and the allegorical.

Would he have been so eager to have Bruni translate Plato, the Bruni who by his translations helped bring about the Platonic Renaissance? Or would he have declared war on Plato as he did on scholasticism? Yet it might be argued that he knew of Plato’s views on poetry and poets from Augustine (C.D.,u, 14; see p.68). True, up to a point. But he wrongly got the idea from Augustine that Plato was talking only about indecent plays: “Sed expulit Plato poetas non quoslibet nec ex qualibet civitate sed inhonestos Athelanos et comicos veteres, quorum nimia licentia fuit circa obicienda et describenda flagitia.” Coluccio’s reputation as a philosopher seems to have been based on his willingness to answer letters about problems that troubled his correspondents. His method was to consult his large classical library for material to back up the conclusions he reached by applying common sense and traditional morals to the question before him. By means of his favorite inherited tool of allegory he could fashion almost any classical allusion to suit his purpose. He opened

up no new philosophical paths. Coluccio’s attitude towards friendship was discussed in Chapter V.

He holds that truth comes before friendship, and cites Aristotle’s view that truth comes first. He hastens to add, it is interesting to note, that he does not necessarily agree with Aristotle in his dispute

| with Plato.’ He disagrees with Aristotle and Cicero that one cannot have many friends, quoting the Christian view that one should love his neighbor. The virtuous life cannot be led without truth.’ 1. Epist., M1, pp. 344-345.

2. Epist., 1, p. 441.

SALUTATI?’S PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION 89 Truth is, however, an act of intellect, charity is an act of will, and since will is nobler than intellect, as he often maintains, especially in the De nobilitate, as we saw, therefore charity is the greater virtue.

The will to know is insatiable, but one cannot agree with Cicero that one can attain all the knowledge he desires.t That nobility depends on virtue, not on blood, is Coluccio’s view in the De nobilitate. His opinions on free will and predestination are presented in the De fato, discussed in Chapter II, and in Epist., u, pp. 231, 320. Coluccio constantly tells his correspondents at great length not to flatter him or praise him for his knowledge. Martin considers these protests a mere continuation of the mediaeval tradition of “official modesty,” and maintains that the conviction of his own

worth and knowledge shines through.2, We may grant that traditional epistolary usage is the origin of Coluccio’s custom, as we use “Dear Sir,” or “Distinto signore,” or Sehr geehrter Herr” or “Cher monsieur” or their elaborated forms without thinking of their true meaning. But Salutati develops his thoughts about humility at such length that I am willing to take them as genuine. And Martin’s comment that Coluccio introduced these remarks for the benefit of posterity is not only unkind but uncalled for, since Coluccio did not put together an edition of his letters. In the De nobilitate Coluccio shows his relatively low opinion of medicine and of science in general. One of the reasons seems to be that he associates physica with the schoolmen.? Although in

1367 he speaks highly of the astrologer Dagomari,* he later criticizes astrology, partly because it interferes with free will, and says he had always considered it perridiculum to have recourse to the

course of the stars.° Astronomy, however, being a mathematical | 1. Lab. Herc., p. 73. 2. Alfred v. Martin, Coluccio Salutati’s Traktat “Vom Tyrannen” (Berlin, 1913),

. Lab. Herc., p. 3. For his opinion of physicians see Epist., u, pp. 89-90; MI, | PP. 379, 390. 4. Epist., 1, p. 16.

§. Epist., 1, pp. 280-288. 6. Cf. Epist., tv, pp. 12-15, 87; 11, p. 30; Lab. Herc., pp. 148-150; De fato, 1, 2. Nor does he put any faith in dreams, Delphic oracles, divination, etc. (Epist., 1, p. 150; Ill, pp. 262. 368; Iv, p. 14). In A History of Magic and Experimental Science, m (New York, 1934), p. 516, Lynn Thorndike distorts Coluccio’s views. In Epist., 0, p. 124,

90 CHAPTER VI science, he accepts.’ Averroes and his followers, associated in Coluccio’s mind with atheistic scientists on the one hand and scholasticism on the other, come in for condemnation. Averroes is called irreligiosissimum,? and venenosum: “Sequatur turba philosophantium Aristotelem vel Platonem, sequatur venenosum Averroim.”3 He adds that Jesus is good enough for him.

It may be thought unnecessary to discuss Coluccio’s attitude towards Christianity since that was not a part of his humanism in the narrow sense of the term. Indeed the humanism of the Renaissance and even of Coluccio is sometimes regarded as opposed to Christianity. As for Coluccio, this view is surely mistaken. Regardless of what may be true of some of the later humanists, the earlier ones were neither atheistic nor agnostic nor pagan. We must not commit the error of thinking that Coluccio could foresee the attitude of some later humanists to religion just because we can see it behind

us. It is idle to speculate whether he would have renounced humanism if he had had the power to look into the future. Certainly Coluccio was a practicing Christian and, as far as one can judge any man’s inner feelings, was deeply religious. As we noted in De seculo et religione, he could write as fervently in behalf

of Christian faith and institutions as any cleric. He had none of the skepticism that manifested itself at times in the century following his death. When he could not accept the literal truth of a Biblical passage, he could always resort to his favorite device of allegory, as many had done before him and as many still do. It is not too farfetched to say that Coluccio was not so much concerned whether his particular allegorical explanation is correct as with showing that

a poet's statement, properly interpreted by allegory, was not inconsistent with the Christian religion; just as Lucretius did not care about the truth of his particular explanation of natural phenomena, for example, he suggests that Coluccio favors astrology in asking why we attribute

the plague to the air and not to the position of the stars, which would be more rational (but no more true, he implies, in my opinion). Coluccio’s attitude is indicated by the next words mathematicorum vanitatem. 1. Epist., IV, p. 226. 2. Epist., Ml, p. 191.

3. Epist., Iv, p. 215.

SALUTATI?S PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION QI as long as it could be shown that religion had nothing to do with them. As Coluccio succinctly puts it: “Est igitur poetrie . . . initium laudatio divinitatis atque virtutis quam gentiles habuerunt cum vera

religione communem.”* The addition of the word virtutis is significant. More than once he offers several allegorical explanations

for the same story.” Salutati was deeply affected by the religious movement of the Bianchi in 1399, whose processions through the streets of Florence,

singing the Stabat mater, he describes in sympathetic words.3 In | many of his letters one can see his sincere piety. It is understandable, then, that Coluccio, though differing deeply with Giovanni Dominici on the question of reading secular literature, could still be sincere in his praise of Dominici’s knowledge, his devotion to religion, and his ability as a preacher and confessor.*

Dominici had been active in the Bianchi movement. Coluccio had been influential in the endeavor to keep Dominici in Florence im 1404.

Bonacchi’ is certainly wrong in saying that Coluccio could not understand Christianity and that he was ironical in asserting his faith in Christ.° Coluccio may have deluded himself in thinking he could serve both God and poetry, but if'so he had many followers and predecessors.

Coluccio’s remark that the plague was sent by God? and his constant assertions that he owes all his successes to God may be explained by some as a traditional form of expressing himself, but his blunt statement to Poggio that he should attribute his advancement at the papal court not to his own good qualities but to God should convince the skeptical.? His vast knowledge of the Bible is another clue to his beliefs. 1. Lab. Herc., p. 9, 28. 2. Lab. Herc., p. 267, 29-323 p. 325, 25 ff.; p. 370, 21-24, etc. 3. Epist., M1, p. 355. 4. Epist., Iv, p. 210. See also p. 63. 5. Gino Bonacchi, Nel secolo dell’umanesimo (Pistoia, 1932), p. 51. Cf. V. Zabughin, Vergilio nel rinascimento italiano, 1 (Bologna, 1921), p. 105: “Nessuno poteva mettere in forse la religiosita del Salutati.”

6. Epist., Iv, p. 215. 7. Epist.,u, p.92. 8. Epist., tv, p. 6.

92 CHAPTER VI Coluccio’s attacks on the weaknesses and vices of clerics is, of course, no indication of anticlerical or antireligious feeling. Quite

the contrary in his case.’ The faults of the clerics at Rome are discussed at length in a letter to Francesco Bruni.? He alludes to the “curie Romane sentina.”3 In a public letter he writes: “Sint vobis merito suspecta beneficia clericorum, nec ulla putetis dona carere dolis, sed timeatis clericos et dona ferentes,” with a neat allusion to a famous passage in Virgil.

1. Cf. Epist., IV, p. 44, n. 2. Epist., 1, p. 272.

3. Epist., m, p. 284; cf. p. 442. 4. I. Rigacci’s edition of the letters, 1 (Florence, 1791), p. 100; Virgil, Aen., u, 43-44, 49.

CHAPTER VII

COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR

CHAPTER VII

COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR | 1. Literary Criticism.

In the realm of literary criticism Coluccio had some very definite

views. He ranked Petrarch above all other writers, ancient or modern, as we shall see later. He placed Virgil above Homer.’ Of course he knew Homer only in the translation of Leontius Pilatus. He acutely observed that the Bucolics would not have survived if they had not been propped up by the Georgics and Aeneid.’

In general, Coluccio lauds the ancients, among whom he includes the Church Fathers, and has no use for mediaeval and con-

temporary writers. Let me stress here that Coluccio classed the Church Fathers, not with the mediaeval authors as some modern scholars have falsely assumed, but with the ancients. From the standpoint of style he praises all from Cicero to Cassiodorus but can find no merit in writers such as John of Salisbury, Ivo of Chartres, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildebert of Lavardin, Peter of Blois, and Abelard. Among historians he has no use for recent and contemporary writers.‘ 2. Historical Criticism.

The chief function of history, Coluccio believed, was to recite deeds of past heroes which would lead others, through imitation,

to equal and surpass them.’ He proceeds to give many examples from Valerius Maximus, Frontinus, Justinus, and others. As we could expect, there is much of the mediaeval and yet a ereat deal that is new and even pioneering in Coluccio’s historical

2. Epist., u, p. 266. | 1. Epist., 1, p. 267; m, p. 13; Lab. Herc., p. 307, 24.

3. Epist., ul, pp. 79 ff. 4. Epist., 1v, p. 95 and Novati’s note.

5. Epist., ul, p. 291. .

96 CHAPTER VII criticism.’ He accepts the ancient myths as historical truth or explains them by allegory or in other ways. He of course accepts the literal truth of the Bible stories or explains them allegorically. He does not always make an effort to decide on the relative importance of his sources. Poets are considered historians. An interesting example of his historical method in Epist., m, p. 159, tells the story of the heroism of Acilius, a soldier of Caesar at the naval battle of Marseilles, as related by Suetonius and Valerius Maximus. He observes that Caesar makes no mention of this in his Civil War. The problem raised by Coluccio’s correspondent is that Lucan attributes

the act of heroism to a Massilian opponent of Caesar. Coluccio gives several possible explanations: Since there are differences in the

two accounts, it may be that Lucan has another incident in mind; or Lucan made up the story to glorify Caesar, which is hard to believe; or perhaps Lucan depended on now lost historians, especially Greek, who would want to put the Greek colony of Marseilles in a better light. In any case, Coluccio observes, Lucan was not thinking

of Acilius. Actually, however, Lucan probably appropriated the Acilius story so as to present opponents of Caesar more favorably.

Still Coluccio at times exhibits a skepticism that we, with our hindsight, can recognize as the beginnings of a new movement. He admits that historians dealing with events preceding their own times

have written what seemed to them more likely than truc.? He is skeptical about miracles said to have happened in recent centuries, as related by Saba Malaspina, but his skepticism rarely extends to the Classical and Biblical periods. Ratio, experientia, and auctoritas

are his tools for arriving at the truth in clarifying uncertainties, he tells us;+ yet he often fails to use them. At the end of the De tyranno (5, 7), in discussing the question whether Aeneas and An-

| tenor were traitors, he presents the varying opinions of Livy, 1. Novati’s notes gives useful hints on Coluccio as a historical critic. A. von Martin

gives an excellent detailed summary (whose exhaustive character he modestly disclaims) in his Coluccio Salutatis Traktat “Vom Tyrannen’” (Berlin, 1913), pp. 75 ff.

2. Lab. Herc., p. 79, 23 and, in almost identical language, Epist., 1v, p. 125, where he adds: “Verisimilitudo . . . media est fabulose fictionis et certissime veritatis.”

3. Epist., 0, pp. 29-30; Iv, p. 125. :

4. Epist., Iv, p. 166.

COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR 97 Sisenna, and Dares and Dictys, without being able to come to a conclusion. He does, to be sure, call Livy nobilissimus and lets the reader decide whether Dares and Dictys are apocryphal and untrustworthy, as he call them elsewhere.’ His general tendency is to pile up authorities without evaluating them, to equate Valerius Maximus and Livy, even when the former is using the latter as his source. One could wish he had been as ready to disbelieve fables, myths, and the like as he is to reject earlier “authorities” on allegor-

ical interpretations in favor of his own.? The old tales are in the public domain, he holds, and everyone has a right to interpret them allegorically in his own way. Perhaps Coluccio’s most significant statement is that a past age

must be judged by the standards of the time, not our standards.3 To be sure, he is driven to this point of view by the necessity of defending Virgil and Aeneas, who can do no wrong. He is rather disingenuous when he answers Cicero’s attacks on the dead Caesar by citing the orator’s culogistic remarks in earlier years.

Other evidence bearing on Coluccio as a historical critic will come out in the discussion of his activity in philological and textual criticism. Martin rightly emphasizes that in the case of Coluccio we are still only in the beginnings of historical criticism, and effectively quotes Voigt that historical criticism was the daughter of human-

ism;+ in other words, Coluccio’s constant and intimate contacts

with the Classical Latin authors led him into the right path of historical interpretation. The same may, of course, be said of other early humanists.

3. Philological Criticism. , In a sense, Coluccio’s best contribution to historical method is in

the fields of philological and textual criticism. He was well in advance of his age in attributing the Bellum Gallicum to Caesar 1. Epist., rl, pp. 311, 546. 2. Lab. Herc., pp. 45-47. 3. Epist., 1, pp. 234, 266 ff. 4. Martin, p.98; G. Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, third edition, 1 (Berlin, 1893), p. 495. 7

98 CHAPTER VII instead of Celsus, to whom the work was commonly credited not only by the later Middle Ages but even by humanists from Petrarch and Boccaccio on.’ Apparently Coluccio was not the first to deny that the Cato who wrote the Disticha was neither Cato the Censor nor Cato of Utica.? He wrongly distinguished the tragedian Seneca from the philosopher, partly because of a statement by Sidonius, partly because of some remarks in the Octavia which have led recent

scholars to deny Seneca’s authorship of this play. Though he did not achieve the truth, this letter was widely circulated and had its influence in producing a better solution of the problem. He was

right in saying that Cicero did not collect his own letters for publication but wrong about Pliny, who states in his first letter that he had made a selection.4 Coluccio did a fine piece of philological research in dealing with a passage in Valerius Maximus (vi, 5, 2). Valerius quite mistakenly identified the Scipio Nasica who at Ostia received the representation

of Cybele, with the leader of the senators who killed Tiberius Gracchus. Coluccio remarks that the former would have been over 90 when he led the attack against Gracchus and 115 when he was elected consul.5 So Coluccio decides that there were two Scipio Nasicas, one the son of the other — actually he was the grandson. But Coluccio was not satisfied with this creditable conclusion, for it would discredit the erudite historian Valerius, who was a great favorite with Coluccio as with others in the fourteenth century. He looked through the text of Valerius and found that in v1, 9, 11 all the manuscripts that he examined had the name Scipio Nasica for the

man who was captured by the Carthaginians and whom other authors called Scipio Asina. So he wrote the name Asina in the margin of his codex, he tells us. Modern editions also have Asina, though all the manuscripts read Nasica. The emendation is credited to the sixteenth-century scholar Glareanus, but Coluccio anticipated him by nearly two centuries. Against the view that the reading 1. Epist., 0, p. 300 and n. I. 2. Epist., 1, p. 307; Wl, p. 273. 3. Epist., 1, p. 150. 4. Epist., m1, p. 87.

5. De tyranno, 2, 4; cf. Epist., 1, p. 398 and n. 3.

COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR 99 Nasica may have been a slip on Valerius’ part rather than an error

in the manuscript tradition, is the fact that the epitome of Paris reads Asina.

Coluccio then returns to the other passage. Emboldened by his success in emending to Asina in v1, 9, 11, he suggests that there is an error in the tradition in vu, 5, 2, and would add “filius eius” before the clause beginning “qui matrem Ideam.” Unfortunately for this emendation Nasica, the murderer of Gracchus, was the grandson, not the son of the host of Cybele. Emerton’s comment on this passage of the De tyranno reads: “We cannot fail to re-

cognize the general soundness of his principles, especially his un- | willingness to accept any statement merely on the authority of a famous name” (this is somewhat exaggerated). Emerton adds: “He uses his own mind with a freedom altogether modern, in marked contrast to the blind receptivity of the mediaeval chronicler.” * Salutati gives much attention to the interpretation of words and passages, especially in answering a puzzled correspondent. Etymology is a favorite pursuit, particularly in the De laboribus Herculis as a basis for allegory. A good instance of his interpretation is his popular commentary on the first of Seneca’s Epistles.

Of course Coluccio was not always right in his interpretation. He explained Dante’s sub Iulio of Virgil’s birth incorrectly.3 Some-

times he strains the interpretation to prove his point, as in a letter of Jerome.* 4. Textual Criticism.

Salutati’s contribution to textual criticism is probably the most

important of his scholarly accomplishments, though virtually unknown. His statements of principles and his application of those principles not only in his letters and other writings but especially

in the correction of the many manuscripts he has left us constitute , 1. E. Emerton, Humanism and Tyranny (Cambridge, Mass., 1925), p. 81. 2. Epist., ul, p. 239. 3. Epist., u, p. 78. Dante, Inf., 1, 70. 4. Epist., tv, 187.

I0O CHAPTER VII a valuable and unique collection of material. Many of his emendations and the variants he took from other manuscripts find a place, unbeknownst to us, in our modern texts. Not only that, but his disciples learned his methods and passed them on. A statement of Coluccio’s views on textual criticism in the De fato (2, 6) is so remarkable that part of it deserves direct quotation. Sed sciat me multos Epistolarum ad Lucilium et De civitate Dei codices non modernis solum sed antiquis scriptos litteris contulisse omnibusque diligenter excussis quicquid fuerit quod hunc errorem induxerit, tantam comperisse varietatem quod librarios aut Augustinum aut Senecam michi

constiterit non scripsisse sed potius quemlibet iuxta sue ignorantie cecitatem atque libidinem corrupisse . . . Late siquidem et ubique corrupta sunt omnia. Et dum librarii per evagationem mentis et capitis levitatem inadvertenter omittunt, dum temerarie mutant quod non intelligunt, dum plerumque glosulas ex librorum marginibus et interliniis veluti scribenda recolligunt, nullum omnino textum philosophorum moralium, historicorum, vel etiam poetarum non corruptissimum reliquerunt. Quod quidem crimen non ipsis librariis solum, qui per inscitiam suos libris infigunt errores, sed legentibus potius et illis precipue qui non prorsus ignari sibi se scire (quod latum ignorantie vestibulum est) corrupto iudicio persuaserunt ascripserim. Hi quidem dum rebus non intellectis herent, dum quasi monstra sint mirantur stupidi que non capiunt, dum accommodatum aliquem intellectui (ne dicam ignorantie sue) sensum conantur extundere, dum non ignorationi sue sed librariis, forte etiam (tantam crediderim ignorantie temeritatem) ipsis autoribus ascribunt que non intelligunt, presumptuosas in libros manus iniiciunt, et aliquando litterarum, quandogue sillabe cuiuspiam, et aliquotiens dictionum mutatione tum detrahentes aliquid, tum addentes, non solum alienant textus mutantque sententias sed omnia usquequaque pervertunt. Quid referam deprehensam quorundam malignitatem, qui, quo suis erroribus astipulatores habeant, de industria dicuntur maxime autoritatis libros cor-

rupisse? Qualia crediti sunt heretici quam plures in libris Origenis Adamantii machinati. Sed ignorantie crebriora sunt vulnera. O quotiens vidi magistros nostri temporis non emendationes sed menda suis annotasse manibus et ea, dum corrigere cupiunt, ascripsisse de quibus, si in discussionem venerint, nullam possent reddere rationem. Sed oportet eos omnino fateri se congruam destruxisse sententiam aut, si sensus integer

COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR IOI manserit, tum graviora, tum magis idonea vocabula delevisse. Accedunt ad hec litteratorum plurimi, de quorum oribus simplices adolescentuli pendent in scolis, quo de suis ignorantie cathedris intonantes quotidie libros, dum suis, ineptis licet, sensibus serviunt, iubent non corrigi sed

abradi, non emendari (quod facere nesciunt) sed corrumpi. Nec id nostre etatis solummodo vitium est sed omnis que nos precessit post autores ipsos ferme posteritas, ignorantia semper et sine modo crescente, libros quos autoritas et fama scriptorum perpetuos fore spondebat visa

sit ineptis et inconsideratis suis correctionibus, imo corruptionibus, abolere. Quod et nos et futuram etatem perfectum ire video nisi remedium de publico apponatur. Ut sicut hactenus aliquando factum fuit, constituantur bibliothece publice in quas omnium librorum copia congeratur preponanturque viri peritissimi bibliothecis, qui libros diligentissima collatione revideant et omnem varietatum discordiam recte dif-

finitionis iudicio noverint removere.’ |

In order to discover the correct reading, he tells us, he has examined many manuscripts of Seneca and Augustine, early as well as late manuscripts. Note his preference for the older codices, indicated elsewhere too. He concludes that scribes do not copy but in their ignorance corrupt the ancient texts. While their minds wander they omit words, they change what they do not understand, they introduce marginal and interlinear glosses into their texts. Not only the ignorant scribes, however, but the more intelligent readers are to blame. They criticize the authors as well as the scribes and make

arbitrary alterations. Then there are those who, in the interest of some point of view, make deliberate changes. But ignorance is the chief culprit. He has seen, he continues, masters who introduced errors into texts in the guise of indefensible emendations. Thus

they destroy the perfectly good sense of a passage or substitute a , weak word for the mot juste. Then there are the schoolteachers who daily corrupt texts by their stupid changes. Texts will be completely 1.1 have followed the text of Urb. lat. 1184 except for emending extudere to extundere. It might also be emended to excudere. I hope I have not incurred the wrath

of Coluccio! Cf. A. Casacci, “Per la critica del testo nella prima meta del Quattrocento,” R. Ist. lomb. di sc. e lett., Rend., Ux (1926), p. 91. Venice, Marc. lat. vil, 109 (2852), corrected by Coluccio, also has extudere. In Vat. lat. 2928, corrected by him, this part has been lost.

102 | CHAPTER VII ruined and forgotten unless some official remedy is found. Coluccio suggests that public libraries containing many volumes be founded,

and that scholars be put in charge who would revise the texts after careful collation. That was the ancient practice, he observes, as one can see from the subscriptions in some manuscripts, such as

those of Terence, revised by Calliopius. But Coluccio is not sanguine, for the scholars who could undertake such a task do not exist. Coluccio’s idea of a public library was carried out by Cosimo de’ Medici in the library of San Marco. Scholars began to emend texts, and critical editions were turned out. But many of our current texts contain too many emendations by scholars of the fifteenth

century and later. We sometimes sigh for the carelessly copied manuscripts of earlier centuries in preference to the sophisticated texts produced by later scholars. But Coluccio’s idea is still a good one.

Not only in the preceding passage but many times Coluccio mentions his examination of several manuscripts in order to find a satisfactory text. So he examined various texts of the Ad Herennium,? Lactantius,? Petrus Comestor,? Statius, Theb.,* Ovid., Met.,° Pomponius Mela,° Virgil, Georg.,” the Bible,® Seneca, Trag.,° Cicero, Sen.,?° Cicero, De natura deorum,™ Lactantius Placidus,'? Valerius Maximus.”3

The most striking example of Coluccio’s indefatigable search for readings in various manuscripts centers on the Dialogues of Gregory the Great.’4 His correspondent Domenico Bandini wanted to know the ancient name of Citta di Castello. Coluccio found nothing in Pliny, Solinus, or Mela. Then he remembered that an early bishop of Citta di Castello was St. Floridus, after whom the cathedral is named. He recalled too that Gregory the Great mentioned St. Floridus in his Dialogues. Here we have an example of excellent philo-

logical combination. So he looked up the two manuscripts of 1. De fato, 3, 11. 2. Ibid., 3,13. 3. Lab. Herc., p. 165. 4. Ibid., pp. 232, 281, 301, 366. §. Ibid., pp.94,397. 6. Ibid., p. 475. 7. Ibid., p. 473. 8. Epist.,u, p. 477. 9. Epist., 1, p. 124; MI, p. 690. 10. Epist., 1v, p. 83. 11. Lab. Herc., p. 479. 12. Ibid., p. 366. 13. De tyranno, 2,4. 14. Epist., 1, pp. 622 ff.

COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR 103 Gregory that he owned (note that he had two). If they had agreed on the name of the place where Floridus was bishop, says Coluccio, the matter would have been settled. But they disagreed; so Coluccio proceeded to examine every manuscript he could lay his hands

on—a total of twenty. It is truly amazing that he could find eighteen manuscripts, besides his own, in or near Florence. Bandini’s catalogues of the Laurenziana have only fourteen complete manuscripts, including two of the fifteenth century. Only three

manuscripts are in the San Marco collection, including one of Coluccio’s. The chances are that there are not more than twenty in all Florence today. Even more amazing was Coluccio’s persistence in searching for the manuscripts and his success in locating them.

The number of different readings is astounding: Coluccio lists thirteen. This corresponds with the facts about the oldest manuscripts known today. Nine manuscripts of the eighth to the eleventh century have seven different readings." Coluccio concluded that Tyberine or Tyferne, or both together,

was the name of the town, finding partial corroboration in Pliny, Mela, the Geographus Ravennas, and Ptolemy. Finally he observed that Tifernum (the form used in some of the sources) should be spelled with i, not y, and stated that this spelling is favored by a copy he has seen of an ancient inscription in the chapter house of the Cathedral in Citta di Castello: Cui rei fidem faciunt antiquissime littere quas vidi sumptas ex marmorco lapide qui est in domibus canonicorum illiusce civitatis.

If the inscription had given the actual name of the city, Coluccio

would have said so. What the nature of the confirmation was is to be seen from two ancient inscriptions in the Cathedral, one giving the name of a woman, Tiferniae, the other of a man, C. Tifernius.* This must be one of the earliest instances since antiquity of the use of inscriptions to prove a point. 1. Gregorit Magni Dialogi libri IV, ed. U. Moricca (Rome, 1924), p. 214. 2. C.I.L., XI, $940, §949. The name of the town or its inhabitants is found in $933, 5937, 5942. Another indication of Coluccio’s interest in inscriptions is in Epist., m, p- 655, where he thanks Poggio for sending him copies of old inscriptions so quickly

(tam celeriter). These words show that Coluccio asked Poggio to send them.

104. CHAPTER VII Though Coluccio had access to two or more manuscripts of a number of authors, it is obvious, on the other hand, that in some cases he was able to consult only the single manuscript in his own library. This is, I believe, clear with respect to Pliny’s Natural History.7 1 do not think that his remark in one passage contradicts this statement: “Que si sunt ut ipse scripsit ignoro: adeo corrupti sunt illius autoris codices.”? In the De fato passage he added: “Forsan enim in aliis posset aliquid aliter reperiri.”

Coluccio’s pessimistic attitude towards scribes and their texts is brought out in a letter in which he beseeches his correspondent to

obtain for him a certain very accurate copy of Dante: Sed quorsum hec? Ut minus admirere si tam ardenter me concupiscere videas aliquem textum reperire correctum. Dici quidem non potest quam molesta michi sit ista corruptio, que libros omnes invasit. Vix enim in-

venitur iam ex Petrarce Boccaciique libellis codex fideliter scriptus quique non multum ab exemplaribus degeneravit; sunt quidem non exempla sed exemplorum similitudines. Vera quidem exempla vestigia sunt exemplarium atque sigilla; que vero pro exemplis habemus adeo dissident ab exemplaribus quod plus ab cis deficiant quam statue deficere soleant ab hominibus quorum simulacra sunt. Hec quidem, licet habeant ora, nichil dicunt; illa vero, quod deterius est, contraria suis exemplaribus sepe dicunt. Que cum communis calamitas sit, in hoc libro latius obrepsit et copiosius, quoniam vulgares et imperiti perite non possunt que periti fecerint exemplare.

Most manuscripts are corrupt, he asserts, and it is difficult to find a

codex of Petrarch and Boccaccio without many errors. They are not copies but imitations, no more like the original than a statue is like a man, worse in fact, for statues do not speak but these inaccurate copies speak falsely. Coluccio was well aware that the more a text is copied, the more

errors are introduced in it. So when he heard that a copy of 1. Epist., 1, p. 550; Lab. Herc., p. 475; De fato, 3, 11. 2. Lab. Herc., p. 365. 3. Epist., m1, p. 373. Other examples of Coluccio’s attitude towards scribes are in Epist., W, pp. 505, 518.

COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR 105 Petrarch’s De viris illustribus was being made for him on paper, he asked that instead it be copied on parchment, “ne ex nova exemplatione dolo, mendaciis, et inconstantie fraudibus scriptorum, quo-

rum mores (quid dixi mores? Imo vitia) te novisse reor, quasi mancipium dedar.”’ The point is that Coluccio wanted all his books to be written on parchment; if the Petrarch came to him on paper, he would have to have it transcribed, and that would have meant more errors. Coluccio propounds a critical principle suggested by an attempt to emend a sentence in Seneca’s first epistle to Lucilius: Maxima pars vitae elabitur male agentibus, magna nihil agentibus, tota vita aliud agentibus.

His principle is: Rationabilius tamen est, si varios invenerimus esse textus, illum qui sequitur ordinem eligere quam disturbatum atque distortum anteferre, nisi perversionem ordinis aliqua ratio vel convenientia persuadebit.’ The lectio difficilior, lectio potior principle had not yet been evolved.

The large number of corrections and variants that Coluccio introduced in some of his manuscripts shows even better than his | specific statements his attitude towards the texts handed down. The variants presumably represent the readings found in other manu-

scripts. He was very meticulous in his corrections, changing not only que (which stands for quae) to the abbreviation when the conjunction is intended, but also quod to the abbreviation sign (q with a hook) for the conjunction. When this abbreviation is used for the pronoun, he changes it to a more appropriate form. His

other corrections often were emendations of his own. He was by no | means always right, any more than his predecessors and successors

were. Our texts today are filled, I am sure, with emendations introduced by readers from antiquity on, especially, where our manuscripts are late, by the humanists of the fifteenth century. Coluccio must be given credit for being the first really serious I. Epist., 1, p. 331. 2. Epist., Wl, p. 239.

106 CHAPTER VII textual critic of the humanistic period. As Novati says, he was in Italy “primo e vero instauratore” of textual criticism." 5. Language.

Though Salutati’s Latin is far superior to that of many of his contemporaries, it still reveals such mediaevalisms as the use of a quod clause instead of the infinitive in indirect statements. He also uses quod for ut in result clauses and after verbs of fearing. He employs quo for ut in purpose clauses which contain no comparative. Suus for eius, sibi for ei, etc., are frequently found. As in other respects, Coluccio faces, Janus-like, in two directions in his use of

Latin, back to the Middle Ages, forward to the Renaissance. Without going into detailed analysis of his usage, it will be sufficient to call attention to one reform of mediaeval practice in which

he played an important part. One of the simplest rule-of-thumb tests to determine whether a writer of the fourteenth century was a humanist is to note whether he uses the singular or the plural in addressing an individual. Following Petrarch’s lead, Salutati almost invariably used the singular in his private letters, and induced others to do the same. He himself distinguishes the new humanists, antiqui, from the moderni by this usage, for he asks a humanistic correspondent why he speaks like the moderns though he fights in the camp of eloquence along with

the ancients.2 He would have used the singular in his public epistles too if he had been permitted by the authorities; it was not until 1429 that the Florentine chancellery adopted the practice, under the urging of Salutati’s disciple and successor, Leonardo Bruni.? Salutati constantly expostulated with his correspondents

and urged them to follow his example.* In the case of one recalcitrant correspondent, Giovanni Conversino da Ravenna, himselfa humanist, Salutati was forced to write four lengthy letters on the subject and to marshall all the arguments at his command.3 1. Epist., 1V, p. 86,n.3. 2. Epist.,m, p. 409. 3. Epist., 0, p. 419 and n. 4. 4. Epist., 1, pp. 35, 249; U, pp. 162, 394; I, pp. 78, 156, 348, 481; IV, p. 19. 5. Epist., u, pp. 408, 411, 438, 471. The relevant letters of Giovanni are in Epist., Iv, pp. 305 ff. After the first letter Giovanni used the singular. Curiously enough,

COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR 107 In some letters he apologizes for his practice or explains it.’ Only in special cases of persons of great dignity is the plural permissible, though it is against ancient usage. Let us leave the practice, he says, to ambitious prelates and sensitive rulers.3 Salutati’s strong feelings on the subject were well-known. When he and his beloved disciple Leonardo Bruni had an argument about various matters, including the proper way of writing Leonardo’s name, the latter humorously threatened to use the plural on his master if he did not yield.+ In his Lucula noctis Giovanni Dominici employs the singular in addressing Coluccio, to whom the volume is dedicated. Perhaps he did this out of deference to the humanist. But he cannot resist a

bit of irony (43, 234): “atque socius et forsitan auditor aliquis, ne improprie salutet in plurali, dicens: ‘Dominus vobiscum.’” In one of his earliest letters Salutati starts out with the plural while explaining that he will use the singular, which he does in the rest of

the letter. In the only other letter addressed to this correspondent (perhaps written the following year) he uses vestram in the first line

and thereafter the singular.’ Somewhat similar is his practice in another early letter, which consists partly of prose, partly of verse. In the verse, which comes first, he uses the singular; in the prose,

the plural.° In later letters to this man he does not hesitate to tutoyer. Interesting is his custom in four letters to Francesco Bruni

written between November, 1367, and March, 1368. He wants Bruni to get him a position in Rome. In the first two, which are very deferential, he uses the plural. In the third, exuberant because of a friendly reply by Bruni, he turns to the singular as he expresses his determination to go to Rome if Bruni will permit. In the fourth in the selection from his other letters given by R. Sabbadini, Giovanni da Ravenna (Como, 1924), pp. 206 ff. only the singular is used, even in the earliest epistles (1374). Perhaps they were revised later. From Giovanni’s first letter to Salutati it is obvious that he stood in awe of the great Florentine chancellor. 1. Epist., 1, p. 259; IV, p. 241.

2. Epist., , p. 163. In this respect, as in others, he showed himself more diplo- |

4. Epist., Iv, p. 378. |

matic than Petrarch. 3. Epist., 1, p.,250; cf. Iv, p. 241. 5. Epist., IV, pp. 241, 619. 6. Epist., 1, p. 5.

108 CHAPTER VII he reverts to the plural as he begs Bruni to accept him." Later letters to him use the singular. To an official he writes two Italian letters

asking a favor. In the first he uses the plural; in the second, the

singular. In another letter he apparently wanted to show his deference by the use of the plural as well as by his language. The addressee was the Count of Soana, a captain who aided the king of Naples. Yet a letter to the king, written the same year, uses the singular.* A deferential letter to the ruler of Cortona employs the

plural, though one of the three manuscripts has the singular throughout.’ More important rulers are addressed in the singular. One cardinal is given the honor of plurality,® but three others must be content with the singular. Pope Boniface IX is honored with the plural, as is his secretary,” but Benedict XIII and Innocent VII are treated with the familiar tu. 6. Orthography.

Orthography is one of the subjects in which Coluccio took a particular interest almost from the beginning of his humanistic activities. We can, in fact, date very closely the beginning and the

cause of that interest. In a letter which is dated June 7, 1391,° Coluccio says that no teacher had ever pointed out to him the need of orthographical studies but that God had guided him to them thirty-five years earlier. This takes us back to June, 1356, and Novati 1. Epist., 1, pp. 42, 45, 46, $3. 2. Epist., U, pp. 3, 5. 3. Epist., ll, p. 7. 4. Epist., u, p. 11.

5. Epist., u, p. 65. Novati (p. 66, n. 2) thinks that the singular represents Salutati’s revision. One wonders to what extent he may have revised others, as Petrarch revised some of his. 6. Epist., U, p. 432; IV, p. 260.

7. Epist., , p. 4343 I, pp. 661, 665; Iv, pp. 255, 263; for the secretary, I, p. 644; Iv, p. 259. A bishop (1m, p. 628) and a general of an order (mm, p. 640) are the only others who rate the plural. In Petrarch’s Variae there are some instances of vos. For

Petrarch’s remarks on the subject see Fam., xxi, 14; Sen., Xv, 1; Var., 32. For Petrarch’s use of Latin in general see G. Martellotti in Atti del III Congresso dell’ Associazione Internazionale per gli studi di lingua e letteratura italiana, 1959 (1961), p. 219,

and the bibliography there cited. 8. Epist., U, p. 279.

COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR 109 rightly observes that this date must have had a particular significance for Coluccio that is unknown to us. What that significance was can, however, be definitely determined. On October 23, 1355, he acquired a copy of Priscian, as noted by him in an autograph note in the volume. The grammarian’s comments on spelling greatly interested Coluccio, for the margins are filled with his notes entered

at various times.’ The date of the letter is over thirty-five but under thirty-six years after the purchase of the book. Thus 1355, not 1356, is the time alluded to in the letter of 1391. Now Salutati was, of course, not the first to read Priscian. Whether

it was divine guidance, as he maintains, that led him to become absorbed in putting into practice the grammarian’s statements on orthography and in seeking to convert others to his view, or whether

it was another urge or first cause, is something that the reader will have to decide for himself. It is just another example of a mysterious something that affected the early humanists and caused them to become enthusiastic about and to propagandize for certain movements in which their predecessors took little interest. It was not always the discovery of new material that caused the interest, as is so often asserted, but rather the new interest led to investigations that produced new discoveries. In the letter of 1391, Coluc-

cio, in correcting various common spelling errors, does not haul out little-known writers from cobwebbed library shelves but depends on sources entirely familiar to the mediaeval world: Priscian, Hugutio, Alexander de Villadei, Balbi’s Catholicon. As Novati remarked, Coluccio was the first humanist to attempt to raise ortho-

graphy from the deplorable state in which it lay prostrate.’

In another letter in which Salutati corrects spelling errors he says | that he has been devoting over forty-six years to orthography. The letter was written December 4. Forty-six and more years after

October 23, 1355, would indicate 1401 as the date of the letter rather than 1402, which Novati tentatively suggested. 1. Laur. Fies. 176, to be discussed later. 2. Francesco Novati, La giovinezza di Coluccio Salutati (Turin, 188), p. 31, n. 3. 3. Epist., m1, p. 598, especially pp. 607 ff. Other letters dealing with spellings, besides those mentioned in the text, are 11, pp. 48, 110, 187, 273; Ill, p. 1553 IV, pp. 40, 85, 220, 246.

TIO CHAPTER VII Besides the information about spelling conveyed in his letters we can also get light about his practice from autograph manuscripts and

from the numerous marginal notes in the books he owned.’ Salutati’s preoccupation with orthography is also seen in his letter to the renowned Greek teacher Chrysoloras, whom he asked for rules about the use of rough and smooth breathings.? In his reply Chrysoloras compliments his correspondent on his desire for accuracy even in small matters, and with his letter he encloses a little treatise on Greek breathings. This he later appended to his famous Greek grammar, which is entitled Erotemata.? In spite of his long and indefatigable efforts in behalf of spelling reform, here too Coluccio kept one foot in the Middle Ages, as we have seen in many other aspects of his scholarly activity. Though he introduced many improvements, he preserved the mediaeval e for ae, he wrote autor for auctor, and forms like stulticia, but most of all he fought bitterly against his own disciple Poggio in behalf of the mediaeval michi and nichil. In a letter written to Poggio less than six weeks before he died he berates him for being so stiff-necked (dure cervicis).4 That Poggio called the spellings michi and nichil nefas

et sacrilegium did not make Coluccio, patient and mild-tempered though he was, more amenable to Poggio’s point of view. Coluccio was a bit disingenuous in saying that Poggio, whose spelling was, of course, mihi and nihil, favored mii and niil. But in pronunciation at that time the h was not sounded, and besides Coluccio could put

up a better argument against mii and niil.° 1. I have tried to follow his practice in my editions of De laboribus Herculis (Ziirich, 1951), De seculo et religione (Florence, 1957), and new letters in Studies in the Italian Renaissance (Rome, 1955), p. 285.

2. Epist., IV, p. 269. 3. See my Studies, etc., p. 279. Coluccio makes use of the information furnished him by Chrysoloras in Lab. Herc., p. 479. 4. Epist.,1v, p. 162. Possibly Coluccio’s conviction that michi and nichil were correct was illogically based on the fact that his twelfth-century Priscian, which he had owned for more than fifty years and to which he must have had a sentimental attachment, used these spellings.

5. There is no indication that Poggio used these spellings, as Novati thought (Epist., tv, p. 220, n. 3). I have not found them in any of the thirteen manuscripts copied by Poggio (see my Origin and Development of Humanistic Script [Rome, 1960], pp. 25 ff.).

COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR III Let it not be thought that the quarrel about how to spell mihi and nihil was a trifling matter. For a time it seemed almost as if the

fate of humanism depended on it, to judge from the numerous discussions. It made a great deal of difference whether you were a “nihil-ist” or a “nichil-ist”. Even if we allow for exaggeration in

the heat of argument, we must admit that Poggio’s “sin and sacrilege” applied to michi and nichil indicates a very strong feeling

on his part. To us the whole matter seems absurdly insignificant. But what will people say five hundred years hence about some of the matters we discuss so violently today in art, poetry, music, politics, etc. 7. Punctuation.

Punctuation is another matter in which Coluccio was interested. He discusses it in one of his letters." An Ars punctandi is attributed in

some manuscripts to Petrarch, in others to Coluccio. Novati rejected both but only the arguments against Petrarch’s authorship seem to me convincing.” They are that Petrarch was not interested in such matters, that the manuscripts and the printed edition which credit Petrarch with this work are late and confined to Germany, that Petrarch’s practice does not agree with that advocated in the

treatise, and that Coluccio (who died thirty-two years after Petrarch) is called “celebris memorie viro.” In the manuscripts which attribute the short treatise to Coluccio it bears the title Ratio punctandi. These manuscripts omit the first clause, which reads: “Quesisti, vir egregie, quid sentiam de ratione punctandi, que, ut celebris memorie viro Salutato respondeam.” At first Novati

accepted Coluccian authorship; even after he rejected it he noted its agreement with the views that Coluccio expressed in his letter. Actually in the letter Coluccio is more concerned with rhetorical pauses than with marks of punctuation. Yet there are some interesting linguistic similarities. The treatise has: “antiquorum aliqui per periodos, id est perfectas clausulas, totam orationem distinxe1. Epist., 01, p. 176 and note. 2.In R. Istituto lombardo di scienze e lettere, Rendiconti, Ser. 1, XLII (1909), p. 83.

See also above, p. 35, n. 2.

112 CHAPTER VII runt, modernitas... quietis gratia... scribentis intentione... in fine capituli vel totius orationis solemus ponere cum nihil ulterius

est dicendum...” The letter reads: “requiescit ... Illi quidem omnem perfectam sententiam et cui nichil adiciendum foret vole-

bant esse periodum .. . intentione scriptoris...in fine totius orationis . . . moderniores.” The reason that Novati changed his mind was that in a Vatican

manuscript (Vat. lat. 565) the treatise is attributed to Iacopo Alpoleio of Urbisaglia. But in view of the striking similarities of language between Coluccio’s letter and the treatise, it seems to me more likely that Coluccio wrote the treatise (probably in a letter answering someone's enquiry) and that Iacopo Alpoleio appropriated it, adding the introductory clause. Later this version was attributed to Petrarch. Only one manuscript credits Alpoleio with the work; three credit Coluccio and a fourth (in the same version) lacks a title. One difficulty remains in any case. The opening sentence in the Alpoleio version speaks of “de ratione punctandi” and then goes on to say that it is not entirely without ratio. To say that ratio is not without ratio is peculiar, to say the least. In the Coluccio version a subject such as ars has to be supplied. 8. Rhetoric and Style.

In the eyes of many of his contemporaries Salutati’s chief contribution was in his effectiveness as a writer of official letters. In the minutes of the meeting at which Coluccio was reélected chancellor of Florence in 1388, he is called “eloquentie fontis et splendidissimi

oratorum Ciceronis alumni, et naturalium et moralium unici speculi, per cuius virtutem eximiam urbs Florentina suis epistolis in figura gravi et eleganti stilo compactis per totum orbem extitit

mirabiliter decorata.”’ When in 1400 he and his family were honored with Florentine citizenship, the citation mentioned particularly his eminence in rhetoric and the ars dictaminis.? A con1. Epist., Iv, p. 465. 2.D. Marzi, La cancelleria della repubblica fiorentina (Rocca S. Casciano, I910), p. 147, n. 9.

COLUCCIO AS A SCHOLAR 113 temporary calls him the best epistolographer of his time in the whole world.’ Filippo Villani, his contemporary biographer, says that Coluccio could properly be called “Ciceronis simia,” which to our ears sounds much less complimentary than Villani intended.”

One can understand how the authorities of Florence appreciated and hence exaggerated his role as a writer of diplomatic notes in his function as foreign minister, and how the style he developed spread

to other chancelleries, but the occasional statement that one still sees that his chief contribution was his influence on the style of public documents is unjustified. Coluccio’s own notion of what eloquentia, the power of effective

expression, consists, may be seen in some of his discussions. Eloquence distinguishes not only man from beast but more especially man from man.‘ For one thing it depends on writing in

Latin, not in the vernacular. Not that the vernacular cannot be eloquent, but its use betrays a lack of discipline. Ornament and argumentation are required. A good style is based on the good old style of expression, without over-embellishment. Coluccio regards

Mussato and Geri of Arezzo as the most eloquent jurists of the fourteenth century.’ He wants to return to the precepts and practice

of Cicero, to get away from the rhythmic cursus of the Middle Ages.® One of the chief features of Coluccio’s style consisted of the

numerous apt exempla and illustrations taken from ancient literature.

That Salutati’s style and usage had not reached the Ciceronian norm is illustrated by a letter of his that in an edition of 1574 has been Ciceronianized, presumably to make a better model for imi-

tators.” The superscription is changed to the Ciceronian style: “Linus | 1. Ibid., p. 149. 2. Epist., IV, pp. 491-492.

3. E.g., John A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, Revival of Learning, Ch. 1 (Mod- . ern Library edition, 1 [1935], p. 378), calls this Coluccio’s “chief contribution.” Cf. G. Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, third edition, 1 (Berlin, 1893),

PL Bpist, I, pp. 76-80, 230. 5. Epist., ul, p. 408. 6. Epist., 1, p.. 77; MW, p. 631; Iv, p. 141. On Coluccio’s style see A. Schiaffini, Tradizione e poesia nella prosa d’arte italiana (Rome, 1943), p. 130. 7. Epist., 1, p. 105. g

II4 CHAPTER VII Colutius Salutatus Innocentio papae” for “Domino pape.” Noviter is changed to nuper, iuvenem (as adjective) to florentem, super omnia

to in primis, preciosum to nobile, verax et fidelissimus to verus et fidissimus, quod to ut after hortor et opto, etc. Tua sanctitas becomes

sanctitas tua, a neat shift from the Middle Ages to antiquity. Talis servitor accesserit is turned into talem familiarem delegeris. Nos nobis fuisse becomes nos fuisse nobis, pro conclusione is omitted. There are

several drastic changes, culminating in one that ends the letter a

. dozen lines before the original close. Some of the phases of Coluccio’s scholarship dealt with in this chapter indicate a contribution to scientific method. The development of this method does not belong exclusively to the natural sciences nor to any one period. In fact, the philological method of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had its influence on the scientific method of the same period. So in earlier periods, from antiquity on, there was the same sort of influence and counterinfluence. Coluccio lived in an era in which scientific method developed more rapidly than at some other times, and he played no insignificant part in the movement through his philological and historical procedures.

CHAPTER VIII

COLUCCIO’S INFLUENCE

CHAPTER VIII

COLUCCIO’S INFLUENCE Except for some of his letters, Coluccio’s writings made no great impression, as we noted in Chapter II. His real and considerable influence was through his personal contacts with his contemporaries and through his large collection of books. He held no teaching post

but he had many disciples, as distinguished from formal pupils, and these disciples carried his humanistic ideas and enthusiasms over

much of Italy." His two greatest disciples. Poggio Bracciolini and Leonardo Bruni, not only succeeded him in the chancellorship of Florence but in the leadership of humanistic studies. It is fitting that the two letters that were his last, as far as we know, were addressed to these, his most distinguished followers. Not that either of these or other disciples were slavish imitators of

Coluccio. There was many a disagreement with Poggio in particular. Besides, all of them developed their particular interests. But the enthusiasm which they gained from their master stayed with them, as well as an interest in the matters discussed in the preceding chapters. Poggio continued the activity in orthography, though violently 1. Vergerio called himself a discipulus of Coluccio (Vergerio, Epistolario, ed. L. Smith [Rome, 1934], p. 55) and both he and Poggio said that Coluccio was communis omnium magister (Coluccio, Epist., 1v, pp. 473, 479). Bruni wrote Coluccio that in Rome, if people want to praise him (Bruni), they say that for many years he was a discipulus of Coluccio (L. Bertalot in Archivum Romanicum, xv [1931], p. 321). This letter was unknown to Novati, who assumed that Coluccio’s reply was to another letter (1, 3), in which discipulus does not occur. Novati (Epist., Iv, p. 119, n. 1) sug-

gested that Bruni revised the letter, which is dated August 15, 1405. The new letter

has the date Viterbo, September 13, 1405, and Salutati’s is of November 6 of that . year. Coluccio talks at length about Bruni’s health, as the latter does in his second letter but of which there is not a word in the first. “Nichil vini in tota hac urbe inveniri poterat quod leve esset atque subasperum, says Bruni in the second letter; Coluccio repeats word for word except for the substitution of illa for hac, etc. Bruni also calls Coluccio pater ac praeceptor (Epist., 1, 8); others write in similar vein.

The idea for what may be called Coluccio’s circle or school or academy perhaps originally came from the discussion groups that met with Luigi Marsili in Santo Spirito. Coluccio attended, perhaps as early as 1379, when Marsili returned to Florence (Epist., 1, p. 244 n.). Rossi and Niccoli were others who participated, and they later became members of Coluccio’s circle (ibid., Iv, p. 120 n.). Marsili died in 1394.

118 CHAPTER VIII disagreeing with his master on some points. Under Coluccio’s direction he seems to have been responsible for the reformed handwriting which we call humanistic.’ He perhaps became interested

in inscriptions through Coluccio’s influence. He went beyond his teacher in weeding out the last traces of mediaeval usages in Latin. Coluccio’s zest for finding books, a zest which he inherited

from Petrarch, left its mark on Poggio, perhaps best known for his discoveries of manuscripts. Petrarch and especially Poggio

made many of their finds through travel; Coluccio, sitting at his desk in Florence, obtained his books by writing around to hordes of acquaintances or by personal solicitation in Florence.

Before we continue, however, we must touch on one phase of Coluccio’s scholarly activity that led to little in his own case and therefore was not discussed in the preceding chapter, but had very decided influence on his disciples. I refer to his study of Greek. Once more taking his cue from Petrarch but at the same time urged

on by allusions to Greek literature in his Roman authors, he attempted to learn Greek. Probably he progressed a bit farther than Petrarch but it is clear that he never learned to read Greek easily. The old tradition that Leontius Pilatus, protégé of Petrarch and Boccaccio, was the first professor of Greek in Florence (ca. 13601362), generally rejected in recent years, has been proved correct by Ricci.? Martellotti has shown from the Latin transliteration of Greek words that Salutati’s knowledge of Greek was based on oral

transmission, that is, his spellings indicate that he acquired his knowledge of the Greek words from hearing them pronounced in accordance with the Greek custom of the fourteenth century. 1.B.L. Ullman, The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script (Rome, 1960). On Poggio see Ernst Walser, Poggius Florentinus (Leipzig, 1914). 2. Pier Giorgio Ricci in Rinascimento, 3 (1952), p. 159. 3. G. Martellotti in Ist. universitario orientale, Annali, sezione linguistica, 1 (1959),

p. 59. For other examples of Coluccio’s spellings of Greek words according to the Greek pronunciation of the time, see my edition of his De laboribus Herculis, p. xt. Some of these words were taken from Pilatus’ Latin translation of Homer; for additions and corrections see G. P. Pighi’s review of my edition in Convivium, New series, (1954), p. 92. The best summary of Coluccio’s knowledge of Greek is by R. Weiss in Miscellanea in onore di Roberto Cessi, 1 (Rome, 1958), p. 349.

COLUCCIO’S INFLUENCE TIg He suggests as a possibility that Pilatus was Coluccio’s teacher.’ That is perhaps unlikely, as there is no indication that Coluccio lived in Florence in 1360-1362. In 1360 he was at Montecatini, in 1361 at Uzzano and elsewhere, as was shown in Chapter I. The chances are that only much later did Coluccio acquire such little Greek as he had. He learned the alphabet and could write his name in Greek capitals.2 He became familiar with the meaning of individual words. In a letter of 1398 he says he will write a Greek proverb in Greek characters. The single manuscript containing this letter omits the Greek, but Coluccio’s translation shows that it was ONOX AYPA2.? In writing to the Greek Cidonius in 1396 he expressed the hope that, like Cato, he might learn Greek in his old age. At the same time he showed off his small Greek by using presbyteros;

then, in a letter of about the same time to Chrysoloras, he wrote “senior et non (ut grecus [sic] usurpem vocabulum) agerontes, sed presbyter.”* Presbyter he found in Papias; agerontes seems to be his own coinage (gerontes with alpha privative), wrongly used in the plural instead of the singular; Papias has only geron. In the same letter to Cidonius, he twice used, or rather misused, a Greek word. He wrote linguam Helladum and de tuis Helladis (pp. 108, 117). Misled, apparently, by some passage in Pilatus,’ he thought that 1. The same suggestion is made by L. Mehus in the preface to the edition of the letters of Ambrogio Traversari by P. Canneto (Florence, 1759), p. cv1, but he cites no evidence. 2. In his copy of Macrobius (Laur., Marc. 328, fol. 79v). He writes it KOAYKIOX. The fourth letter does not represent either the ancient pronunciation (French 2) or the modern (i); the fifth represents the pronunciation of c in the time of Caesar, whose name was written Katoap in antiquity. The Greek passages in the manuscript were added, with superscript Latin translation, after Coluccio annotated the manuscript. Later still, some of the Greek words were transliterated (not always correctly), perhaps by Coluccio. The presence of the numerous Greek passages may have led Coluccio to write his name in Greek.

3. Epist., 11, p. 291. According to Novati, this proverb was preserved in the Middle Ages. Coluccio did not get it from any of the ancient sources listed by A. Otto, Die Sprichworter und sprichwortlichen Redensarten der Romer (Leipzig, 1890), p. 41.

He was unable to obtain a copy of Nonius Marcellus (Epist., m1, p. 616, n. 1) who quotes the proverb. Coluccio also writes words in Greek letters in Lab. Herc., pp. $09, $52. 4. Epist., Wl, pp. 109, 125. 5. Prof. A. Pertusi had the great kindness to furnish me the readings of the chief manuscripts of Pilatus in the passages where Hellas is found. Only the accusative is used by Pilatus for the name of the country: Hellada eight times, Helladam once

120 CHAPTER VIII Hellas meant, not “Greece,” but “a Greek,” and thus formed a genitive plural Helladum and, inconsistently, an ablative Helladis.

In a letter to Chrysoloras he again parades before a Greek his knowledge of Greek by using this same incorrect word: “Utimini quidem pneumatibus, dassia scilicet et sigli, que scribitis super primis

syllabis dictionum quas ellades vel per ro incipiunt vel vocalem.”? Novati has per before ellades as well as after vel, but an examination

of a photograph of Paris Gr. 425, kindly lent me by Professor Weiss, shows that the first per was deleted. Mercati regarded per ellades vel as enigmatic and bracketed these words.? Martellotti stated that an emendation was required, suggesting that quas be changed to que and that per ellades might be intended for per Helladem

or per Hellenes.3 He was on the right track. The elimination of the first per and the comparison with the letter to Cidonius makes everything clear: “which the Greeks begin with either rho or a vowel.” In the same year 1396 Coluccio exhorts one of his young disciples,

Iacopo Angeli da Scarperia, to take advantage of Chrysoloras’ presence to study Greek, and study it intensively; the results will show whether at his age he, Coluccio, can hope to stammer out a bit of Greek. I have come upon no Greek manuscript owned by Salutati. His copies of Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, etc., are in Latin translation. His own version of Plutarch’s De ira was not based on the Greek but was a reworking of an earlier translation.’ He planned also to translate Plutarch’s Lives, not from the Greek but from an Aragonese version. Though he did not carry out this project, it was (Od. 1, 344). A gloss by Pilatus on this passage in his autograph manuscript (Venice, Marc. gr. IX, 2) says distinctly that Hellada means Grecia and Hellines refers to the people. Petrarch paraphrases this in his manuscript (Paris. lat. 7880, 2). But these glosses apparently were not in Coluccio’s manuscript. Laur. S. Croce XXxVI, sin. 9, copied by Coluccio’s friend Filippo Villani, has on flyleaf 8v: “Nota che quando l’autore dicie la Ellada, vuole dire Grecia, et li Ellinos s’intende li Greci.” Similarly in XxxXVI, sin. 10, flyleaf 7v. 1. Epist., Iv, p. 269. 2. G. Mercati in Rendiconti dell’Ist. lombardo, Ser. u, 51 (1918), p. 229, n. 1. The anticipation and doubling of the per is a common type of error in copying. 3. Loc. cit.

4. Epist., I, pp. 130-131. 5. R. Weiss in La Parola del Passato, xxx (1953), p- 323.

COLUCCIO’S INFLUENCE 121 probably he who got someone to produce the Italian version still extant of the Aragonese; this would have been the basis for his Latin translation.’ In the De laboribus Herculis (p. 307) Coluccio says that following in the footsteps of Cicero and Seneca, he will rashly translate some lines of Homer into Latin. What he actually does is to polish up five lines of the version of Pilatus, as Weiss has pointed out.’

Still more indicative of Coluccio’s weakness in Greek are his requests for translation of passages of Greek authors. On August 4, 1401, he asks Iacopo Angeli to send him a translation of Plutarch’s Cicero, if he has made one; if not, to send the Greek so that he can get Leonardo Bruni to translate it.3 At the same time he asks Angeli

to translate what Philostratus has to say about Hector. Angeli did not send a translation but the original Greek text of Philostratus,

for on September 25 Coluccio writes that Bruni had made a translation, from which he then quotes.* Obviously he could not

read the Greek. In a letter written 1397-99 Chrysoloras assures Coluccio that the time will come when he will be able to read and translate the Greek authors.5 So we see that Coluccio’s personal scholarship in Greek amounted to nil. Yet his influence in establishing Greek studies in Florence and Italy was incalculable. First of all, he was primarily responsible for bringing Manuel Chrysoloras to Florence to teach Greek in the university; only a small part of the credit, we know now, belongs to others.° Leontius Pilatus, established by Boccaccio as the first 1. Ibid.; Gianvito Resta, Le epitomi di Plutarco nel Quattrocento (Padua, 1962), pp. 9-11. Laur. S. Croce xxxvVI, sin. 7-10 is a copy of the Aragonese version made by Coluccio’s friend Filippo Vilani. 2. R. Weiss in Misc. ... Cessi (op. cit.), p. 355.

3. Epist., Wl, p.§22. 4. Epist., m1, p. $47. 5. Epist., 1v, p. 343. For the date see G. Mercati, in R. Istituto lombardo di scienze

e lettere, Rendiconti, Ser. 1, L1 (1918), p. 232.

6. Epist., m1, p. 122, n. 1. Cf. Giuseppe Cammelli, Manuele Crisolora (Florence, 1941), p. 28: “Coluccio infatti fu dei primissimi, e certo di tutti il pit influente, nell’adoperarsi acciocché la sua citta invitasse il Crisolora ad assumere l’insegnamento nelo Studio fiorentino.” G. Pesenti, “La scuola di greco a Firenze nel primo Rinasci-

mento, in Atene e Roma, N.S., xt (1931), p. 84, is out of date and incomplete. In Epist., ut, p. 119 Coluccio wrote: “Feci quod noster Manuel hic honorabiliter est electus’. For the influence of Chrysoloras on Rossi and Bruni see Eugenio Garin, “Le traduzioni umanistiche di Aristotele nel secolo XV,” Accademia fiorentina di Scienze morali “La Colombaria,” vit (1950).

122 CHAPTER VIII professor of Greek in Florence, failed miserably not only because of

his repellent personality and his ignorance but because the time was not ripe. Boccaccio had not prepared the way. The learned and cultivated Chrysoloras found a crowd of students eagerly awaiting him, students whose enthusiasm had been kindled by Coluccio Salutati. It was not Bologna or Padua or Pavia that called the Greek master to a chair of Greek but Florence, through the efforts and influence of Coluccio. Chrysoloras had been in Venice on a diplomatic mis-

sion in 1390-1391.' One of Coluccio’s students, Roberto Rossi,

| saw him there and actually took some lessons in Greek under him. We do not know whether Coluccio urged Rossi to go to Venice for this purpose or whether Rossi happened to be in Venice for other reasons. No doubt he brought back enthusiastic reports to Coluccio. Presumably his reports had at least something to do with | arousing Coluccio’s interest in the Greek scholar. Rossi’s enthusiasm, with Coluccio’s approval, may have been responsible for another disciple of Coluccio’s, Iacopo Angeli, going to Constantinople in 1395 and becoming the first Italian to venture to that city for study under Chrysoloras. Very likely Coluccio instructed him

to urge the Greek master to accept the Florentine offer, but it seems to me too strong a statement to say that “Angeli was successful in inducing Chrysoloras to leave for Italy.”?

Even before Chrysoloras arrived in Florence, the town officials raised his salary by 50% and made other concessions, perhaps because Chrysoloras had delayed his arrival. But Cammelli may be right in suggesting that Milan (Pavia) was trying to get him; the new contract gave as one reason for the raise in salary that an insufficient wage might induce the master to go elsewhere.? That could mean Milan, as the following will show. At the end of three years in Florence, Chrysoloras was asked by the Greek emperor, passing through northern Italy on the way to France, to join him in Milan. 1.R.J. Loenertz, Correspondance de Manuel Calécas (Studi e Testi, 152 [1950]), p. 64. On Rossi see A. Manetti in Rinascimento, 1 (1951), p. 332.R. Weiss, “Jacopo Angeli da Scarperia,” in Medioevo e Rinascimento, Studi in onore di Bruno Nardi, 11 (Florence, 1955), p. 809.

3. Cammelli, op. cit., pp. 47-48.

COLUCCIO’S INFLUENCE 123 He obviously wanted Chrysoloras to act for him in Italy by arousing support against the Turks, while he himself went on the same mission to France and England. I imagine that Gian Galeazzo, with his strong sense of rivalry towards Florence, thought it would be a

great triumph to get Chrysoloras for his university at Pavia. I strongly suspect that he persuaded the emperor to allow Chrysoloras to do some teaching as a sort of visiting professor while primarily engaged in his diplomatic duties. Gian Galeazzo entertained the emperor with due ceremony and may well have hinted at aiding him if Chrysoloras were made available as a teacher. This, of course, is pure speculation. Only one pupil of Chrysoloras, Uberto Decembrio, is known to

us from the Milanese period. So Florence has the honor of being the only center in which Chrysoloras devoted his full attention to teaching and in which a group of his students gave a real start to Greek studies in Italy. The most successful of Chrysoloras’ Florentine students was

Leonardo Bruni, and it was Coluccio who got him interested in ; ~ Greek and in other literary pursuits: “Quod Graecas didici litteras, Colucii est opus; quod Latinas non leviter inspexerim, Colucii est opus; quod poetas, quod oratores, quod scriptores ceteros legerim, didicerim, cognorim, Colucii est opus.” Such were Bruni’s words.’ He translated a dialogue of Basil, apparently at Coluccio’s request.’ From Coluccio too came the suggestion to translate some of Plutarch’s Lives.3 Bruni made versions of the Phaedo of Plato and then of four other dialogues and the letters at the urging of Coluccio.‘ He also translated three of Aristotle’s works. His long stay in Rome helped spread the study of Greek there. 1. In a letter of Bruni published in Coluccio, Epist., 1v, p. $17. 2. “Nuper nobis transtulit” (Epist., 1v, p. 185, and n. 1). This was perhaps Bruni’s first translation of a complete work. It was dedicated to Coluccio, who wanted it to answer the critics of the Classics, as Novati inferred from the preface (Epist., rv, p. 185 n.) 3. Epist., 1, p. §22. 4. Epist., 1, p. 301 and n. 4; Bruni, Epist., 1, 8 (p. 15): “Maximas itaque Colucio

patri ac praeceptori meo gratias ago, qui iniungendo hoc munere tantum michi beneficium attulit ... Cuius [Platonis] ego libros si aliquando absolvero et Latinos...

effecero...”

124 CHAPTER VIII Jacopo Angeli was another of Coluccio’s protégés to take up the study of Greek. He went to Constantinople to study under Chrysoloras and returned to Florence for further study when the Greck master was appointed to a professorship there. A letter of Coluccio’s encouraging him in his study of Greek implies that Iacopo had found the beginnings rather difficult.’ He asks Iacopo to bring back as many Greek books as he can—histories, poetry, mythographers,

writers on verse, all of Plato and Plutarch, Greek dictionaries, Homer in large letters (grossis litteris). This last indicates that Coluc-

cio had some hope of reading Homer himself, probably with the aid of Pilatus’ translation.? If Angeli carried out Coluccio’s wishes, we have here the beginning of the importation on a large scale of Greek books from Greece to Italy, a process which had much to do

with the progress of Greek studies. Where would Hellenists be today if Latinists like Coluccio had not been so active in promoting Hellenic studies? In later years Angeli translated some of Plutarch’s Lives. His most important version was that of Ptolemy's Geography, which had great influence; whether that influence

extended to the voyages of discovery has not been sufficiently probed.?

Another disciple of Coluccio’s was Pietro Paolo Vergerio, the famous author of De ingenuis moribus et liberalibus studiis adulescentiae,

which, it seems, drew some inspiration from Coluccio and Chrysoloras. He too became one of Chrysoloras’ pupils in Florence and brought Greek studies to Padua. Roberto Rossi, a less well-known disciple of Coluccio, was one of Chrysoloras’ enthusiastic pupils.‘ Later he became the teacher of Cosimo de’ Medici. To these names 1. Epist., 1, p. 129. _ 2.Ina letter written four years before, he asks for a Cicero in littera grossa for his failing eyesight (Epist., 1, p. 386). Cf. B. L. Ullman, The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script (Rome, 1960), pp. 13-14. 3. B. L. Ullman, Studies in the Italian Renaissance (Rome, 1955), pp. 22-23, 234235. An edition of Solinus published at Vienna in 1520 contains a map of the world by Peter Apianus (Bienewitz) “iuxta Ptolomei cosmographi traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes.” 4. That he was one of Coluccio’s disciples may be inferred from Epist., 0, p. 174; Iv, p. 119. See Aldo Manetti in Rinascimento, 0 (1951), p.33. Lorenzo Ridolfi speaks of the tanta librorum copia in Coluccio’s library; E. Garin, in Giorn. crit. di fil. it., 32 (1953), p. 125.

COLUCCIO’S INFLUENCE 125 of students of Chrysoloras, all disciples of Coluccio, should be added

that of Palla Strozzi. Whether he too was a disciple of Coluccio is uncertain but not improbable.’ Apart from his activity in bringing Chrysoloras to Florence and getting his protégés to study with the Greek schoolmaster, Coluccio probably influenced others of his protégés to study Greek by themselves. This was true of Poggio, whose Greek was still weak in Coluccio’s time and who never became a good Greek scholar.” His translations of Xenophon’s Cyropedia, Diodorus, and Lucian are unsatisfactory. That enigmatic figure, Niccold Niccoli, was a protégé of Coluccio’s, though no letter of Coluccio’s to him is in existence, and he is barely mentioned in any of the chancellor’s existing letters. Niccoli occasionally attended Chrysoloras’ lectures but did not really learn Greek.3 One short letter is the only composition of his that is

extant. His contemporaries wrote about and to him, for whom he served as a sort of information center and a source from whom one could get copies of books. Otherwise his chief contributions to humanism seem to have been his collection of books (many of them from Coluccio’s library) and of museum materials, and his emending of texts. Lesser figures were among Coluccio’s protégés (Antonio Loschi, Angelo Corbinelli, etc.). These and the more prominent ones passed on Coluccio’s ideas and ideals to the communities to which they

went. Others Coluccio influenced through his voluminous correspondence. Perhaps the largest group of correspondents consisted of notaries scattered over the northern part of Italy as far south as

Rome. About forty were notaries, a dozen were chancellors

(usually trained as notaries), about five had positions in the papal | | curia, and eight held a doctorate in law. In these private letters Coluccio did not deal with legal or notarial matters but chiefly with humanistic subjects. Just how important these and other notar1. Cammelli (op. cit., p. 65) includes only those I have mentioned among the certain pupils of Chrysoloras. 2. Walser, Poggius Florentinus, pp. 10, 228-231. 3. Giuseppe Zippel, Nicolo Niccoli (Florence, 1890), p. 19. I have a copy of this scarce monograph through the kindness of his son, Dr. Gianni Zippel.

126 CHAPTER VIII | |

ies were in the spread of humanism deserves detailed study.’ Coluccio may also have been influential in placing some notaries in positions throughout the country.’ It is not inconceivable that his

influence in this respect continued after his death. Is there any significance in the fact that his two favorite and best known disciples, Bruni and Poggio, were elected to the chancellorship of Florence, which he himself had held for thirty-one years: Were the Florentine authorities hoping that each would turn out to be another Coluccio Salutati:?

1. Others have noted the importance of notaries in the humanistic movement, e.g., Ernst Walser, Gesammelte Studien zur Geistesgeschichte der Renaissance (Basel, 1932), p. 8. He calls attention to the large number of persons in various walks of life, particularly notaries, who, following Petrarch’s lead, began to collect classical manuscripts, coins, and inscriptions.

2. Cf. my Studies, p. 206, for a possible example. A recommendation for Pietro Turchi at Rimini was successful (Epist., 11, p. 518). He recommended Bernardo da Moglio to Bruni (Epist., Iv, p. 157) and Rolandino da Campia to Pasquino, secretary of Gian Galeazzo Visconti (Epist., 1, p. 166). According to V. Rossi, Il Quattrocento (Milan, 1938), pp. 25, 32, Coluccio recommended Poggio and Bruni for their positions in the Roman curia. This may well be true, but I do not know on what evidence this statement rests. On Coluccio’s influence upon Domenico di Bandino see A. T. Hankey in Italian Studies, xm (1957), pp. I10128, especially pp. 121, 128, and in Rinascimento, vul (1957), p. 177. The strong influence of Coluccio upon Jean de Montreuil, the most humanistic of the early French humanists, is well brought out by E. Ornato in Studi Francesi, 14 (1961), p. 401, especially pp. 211, 212, 404.

CHAPTER IX

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY

CHAPTER IX

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY It has been estimated that Petrarch owned two hundred books,’

but that estimate is certainly too low. Of these, fifty-two are known — to exist.? Boccaccio is thought to have had about two hundred volumes, of which thirteen have been identified. Coluccio’s library, according to Poggio, was about the size of Niccoli’s, which

contained over eight hundred volumes.* This estimate of the size of Coluccio’s collection would seem to be not unreasonable, when we consider that Poggio knew both collections intimately. The number of existing volumes that I have identified runs to 111 or nearly that. There are also thirteen copies of his works corrected

by him. By adding to these the number from which he quotes, most of which he probably owned, we reach a figure of about 400. We must also allow for duplicates among the lost volumes, since there are many such among those in existence. The highest number

in his pressmarks (for which see below) is 614. Coluccio began collecting books at least as early as 1355 and continued building up his library for the next fity-one years. In 1355 we know he bought

a minimum of four books.’ Repeatedly he mentions his un-

an end.° |

restrained passion for books, a passion to which only death can put

How does one recognize a book once owned by our humanist? Sometimes he entered his name in it. Then again he often put notes in the margins, and one becomes familiar with his handwriting. Finally he usually wrote a kind of pressmark at the upper righthand 1. P. de Nolhac, Pétrarque et ’ humanisme, second edition, 1 (Paris, 1907), pp. 114 ff.

2. Besides the thirty-eight listed by Nolhac, fourteen more have been found, chiefly by Mlle. Pellegrin and G. Billanovich. For the bibliography see B. L. Ullman, The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script (Rome, 1960), p. 16, n. 18. 3. O. Hecker, Boccaccio-Funde (Braunschweig, 1902), p. 5. Cf. Cornelia C. Coulter in Italia medioevale e umanistica, m1 (1960), p. 281.

4. Poggio in his funeral oration for Niccoli in Poggii opera (Argentorati, 1511), fol. 104Vv.

5. See below in his note in No. 106. 6. Epist., u, p. 390; cf. pp. 13, 385; IV, p. 265. 9

130 CHAPTER IX corner of the first page of his books. The characteristic Coluccian pressmark involves several factors: position, script, content, and form. It consists of the word Carte (for Chartae), always written out,

followed by a Roman numeral indicating the number of leaves in the manuscript. Preceding Carte one usually finds a library number in Arabic notation, e.g., “75 Carte xtvut.” Only this combination of characteristics proves that a book belonged to Coluccio’s library, though in one manuscript (No. 31 in my list) Coluccio wrote carte scripte, in two (Nos. 16, 17) he (if it was he) wrote charte. Indication of the number of leaves is by no means confined to manuscripts owned by our humanist. A few examples, _ which by one difference or another distinguish them from Salutati’s

entry, may be given, first from manuscripts in the Laurentian Library: Laur. 34, 12 has “tx carte abhinc supra” on fol. 60v and “cartas Cxxvui continet liber iste” on fol. 128v; 35, 5 has “carte 42 cum hac ultima versus 88 pro carta” on the last page (xiv c.); 53, 25 has “Quinterni xvi carte cCLxxx” on fol. 179v by the first hand "(xiv c.); 79, 13 has “Car. 370” on fol. 1 (xv c.); 90 sup. 116, 3 has “Carte centum et quinquaginta scripte sunt in hac comedia” at the end (xiv c.); Fies. 138 has “Carte 265” on the flyleaf (xv c.); Fies.

168 has “238 ca(r)te” (abbreviated) on fol. 1; Marc. ror has “car. ccxxm” on fol. 1 (xv c.); Marc. 530 has “Charte cLxxn” on the last flyleaf (xv c.). In the National Library of Florence, Conv. Soppr. I, 3, 228 has “In cart(is) xxxxum” on fol. 1 at the left. Lucca 370A has “Car. x1” on fol. 1, “Car. xvmt” on fol. 12v, etc. In the Vatican we find in Vat. lat. 1547, fol. s6v, “Sunt in isto libro carte quinquaginta quatuor” (xvc.). Pal. lat. 1495 has on the flyleaf “Carte 183—4 Iannozii Manetti”*—and there are others. Particularly

: interesting is Vat. lat. 2081, owned by Salutati, with his pressmark on fol. 1r: “128 Carte ccxv1.” It also has the following entries by

someone else: on fol. 140r “carte cx1,” on fol. 205r “car. LXvI,” | on fol. 216r “car. x1; in totum car. ccxv.” The differences between

these notations and Salutati’s must be carefully noted to avoid 1. Perhaps Manetti based his system, with modifications, on Coluccio’s. He owned at least two of Coluccio’s manuscripts (Pal. lat. 221, 309).

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY I3I wrong attribution to Salutati’s library. Close scrutiny has led to the identification of many manuscripts as Salutati’s.? Coluccio’s system in assigning numbers to his manuscripts is one that I have been unable to discover — if he had one. It is not chrono-

logical according to accession, as the following table shows. “After , 1375” means that he calls himself cancellarius, which he became in 1375; other dates are determined by quotations in Coluccio’s letters.3

Coluccio’s Number Date Acquired My Number 46 before 1398 (Epist., 1, p. 275) 66

$2 1357 106

54 1375-1379 (Epist., 1, p. 328) 19

63 after 1375 | 105

71 1375 96

77 1379-1380 (Epist., 1, p. 331) II

94 after 1375 24 102 before 1371 (Epist., 1, p. 153)* IOI 109 after 1375 6

170 1380 Q7 221 1375-1379 29 128 before 1400 (2) (Epist., m1, p. 443) 87

283 after 1381 107

1. Novati and Rajna were misled by similar entries to assign Vat. lat. 3357 and Florence, Naz. Conv. Soppr. I, 1, 28 to Coluccio’s library. See my refutation in “The Composition of Petrarch’s ‘De vita Solitaria’ and the History of the Vatican Manuscript” in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, tv (Citta del Vaticano, 1946), p. 107, reprinted

in Studies in the Italian Renaissance (Rome, 1955), p. 139.

2. Once when I was visiting the late Seymour de Ricci, he asked me the question . posed at the beginning of this paragraph, and I gave him the answer here given. He went to a cupboard and pulled down a slim volume containing the familiar pressmark as well as notes by Coluccio. He had not known the significance of this pressmark. Later he told the story to illustrate the importance of such and other telltale marks for the history of books: English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts (15301930) and Their Marks of Ownership (Cambridge, 1930), p. I. 3. This is not a sure guide: Coluccio may have used a different manuscript from

the one preserved to us or he may have had the manuscript a long time before quoting it. 4. No. rot contains the gloss mentioned by Coluccio; therefore it was the manuscript which he had before him in 1371.

|

132 CHAPTER IX 289 1385(2)-1394 (Epist., , pp. 142,

409, 419)’ 59 326 before 1374 (Epist., 1, p. 186) 52 328 1401 (Epist., m1, pp. 515, 559) 86 397 before 1392 (Epist., m1, p. 35)? 69 In the above I have assumed that the word cancellarius indicates an

acquisition date in 1375 or later. It could be, of course, that the date of acquisition was earlier, but that Coluccio did not enter his official title until later. On the other hand I have not assumed that the absence of the title of his office indicates a date of acquisition before 1375. So many books lack indication of his position that it seems reasonably certain that he did not always indicate it. That is true of

No. II. Is the numbering based on classification? It seems not. The table gives some instances. Poetry has the following numbers:

46 66 §2 106 71 96 77 11 100 IIO 289 59 323 51 397 69 438 10 54 19 63 105 66 36 | 68 46 94 24 95 22 .

Coluccio’s Number My Number

Prose writers in the first hundred are:

1. For the date see my Studies, pp. 225-226. 2. Ibid.

94 24 95 22 391 23 172 95 176 42, 278 4 319 4I 372 47 COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 133

One almost finds classification in the Boethius manuscripts:

|

The numerous Augustines have these numbers:

378 37 32? 40

Were the earlier acquisitions numbered in the 170’s and the later ones in the 300’s? Those numbered 322 and 378 were obtained after

1375. But the one numbered 278 does not fit in with such a scheme.

It occurred to me that the volumes were arranged on Coluccio’s library shelves according to size, that small volumes would have numbers within a certain range, large volumes within another, but

that does not work out. Of course, some volumes have been trimmed more in rebinding than others, but that does not account for the variation. The following table of a few manuscripts selected at random shows the situation:

54 210 19 7 71 230 96 109 325 78 III 348 84 128 370 87

Coluccio’s Number Height in mm. My Number

1§2 348 83 170 309 97 172 305 95 177 212 98 241 214 89

|

134 CHAPTER IX

207 543 79 272 273 76 278 210 4 302 369 2 303 378 88 307 308 SI 318 380 73 328 229 86 353 246 18 373 354 93 403 200 7 413 307 74 433 218 8 438 279 10 443 333 85 482 203 Q2 614 314 80

Still another approach failed to lcad to a solution. In most of Coluccio’s books the number before Carte seems to be in the same

ink and to have been written at the same time as the rest of the pressmark, though, of course, this last would not necessarily follow. The range of the numbers is from 46 to 614. In some ten or twelve manuscripts the ink seems to be different, thus suggesting that the

number may have been added later. Here the range is from 54 to 487. Obviously then no conclusion can be drawn, since the range in both groups is so great. One might expect high numbers only in the second group if a chronological factor were present. It would be reasonable to presume that the various ways in which

Coluccio wrote his name might tell something about the periods at which he acquired his manuscripts or at least when he added his name to them, but the main thing one learns is that the title cancellarius suggests an entry date in 1375 or later. On the other hand, the absence of the title does not necessarily indicate a date before 1375.

In Epist., 0, p. 191, which Novati with some hesitation dated

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 135 1385-1390, and Iv, p. 149, written in 1406, Coluccio observes that

in his youth he called himself Pierius (or Pyerius), based on his father’s name Piero, but soon abandoned it as too “ambitiosum.” Technically he became a invenis at twenty-five, in 1356, but he did not immediately use the form Pyerius. Its first datable use was in 1370 (No. 34). The last dated example is in a letter of 1381 (Epist.,

I, p. 4). Coluccio’s library numbers in the manuscripts with the name Pyerius run from 54 to 318, thus to some extent confirming the view that the library number has no chronological significance. The spelling Coluccius with two cc’s occurs only in two manu~ scripts acquired early: Nos. 49 (1355) and 107 (1357).

In his letters Coluccio signs his name with “De Salutatis“ for

about ten years, from 1392 on (Epist., 0, p. 380; I, p. 669, autograph, 14or or later). The manuscripts which include this have library numbers ranging from 68 to 487, again showing that they were not assigned chronologically. In autograph letters apparently

written two weeks before and a little over two months later respectively (m1, p. 668, 670) he writes Salutatus. This form lasted until his death in 1406. In his manuscripts it occurs twice only, in his Pliny (No. 100) and his Pomponius Mela (No. 9). He refers to Pomponius in 1383 (Epist., u, p. 102); presumably but not certainly he had his manuscript by that time. As to Pliny, in 1378 he could not find in Florence a copy of that author (Epist., 1, p. 291).

He seems to have had access to one in 1383 (Epist., u, p. 89) and definitely read one in 1390 (Epist., 0, p. 233). Mere caprice and exigencies of space may have played a part in determining the form of the name. In No. 46 the ownership claim is found three times: “Liber Colucii pyeri,” “Colucii pyerii liber,”

and “Liber Colucii pyeri de salutatis.” In No. 54 we read: “Liber Colucii pyeri de Salutatis” and “Liber Colucii pierii Cancellarii Florentini.” No. 77 has: “Liber est Colucii pyeri” and “Liber Colucii de Salutatis Cancellarii Florentini.” Some Coluccio manuscripts have no pressmarks at all. There are various explanations. No. 7 is now incomplete, No. 100 lacks volume I. In some instances there are traces of trimming or erasures

(Nos. 3, 20, 28, 68, 102). No. 109 is probably the last book he

136 CHAPTER IX received and he was working on it when he died. For others I have no explanation except that Coluccio neglected to enter a number (Nos. I, 6, 44, 49, 61, 108); such an explanation would fit well with the apparently haphazard system of numbering. There are five paper manuscripts in the collection, not one of which has a pressmark (Nos. 14, 15, 64, 67, 91). The probable explanation is that he planned to have these copied on parchment, according to his custom (see p. 105). In some cases Carte and the number of leaves are given but no library number. In a few of these a thorough job of erasure may have been carried out or there may have been trimming (Nos. 5, 12, 13, 21, etc.). It seems certain that no library number had ever been entered in Nos. 9, 16, 17, 26, 27, 42, $3, 62, 82, 94. This may have been due to neglect or procrastination. Charte is the unusual spelling in Nos. 16 and 17 and there is some doubt about Coluccio’s ownership of No. 17. Coluccio was most generous with his books. His own difficulties in building up a library may have been responsible for his generosity to others. In a letter thanking a correspondent for the loan of a manuscript he introduces a long invective against those who refuse

to lend books." In writing to Niccoli at the time of Coluccio’s death, Poggio comments on his master’s readiness to share his books

with others: “Verum multo magis tum copiis, tum libris suis iuvabat, quos ille tamquam pleno copie cornu, non magis usui suo quam ceterorum esse volebat!”? In a letter to Bruni written twenty years later, reproaching him for not sending a manuscript of Seneca that he had repeatedly requested, Poggio adds: “O noster Coluci, quam saepe eum desidero! Cuius libri non magis sui erant quam

doctorum omnium.”? It might almost be said that in an informal sense Coluccio’s library was the forerunner of the first modern public library. In Chapter VII we noticed his suggestion in De fato 1. Epist., u, p. 160. In writing to Gonzaga, the ruler of Mantua, who had a considerable library, Coluccio says that he knows that Gonzaga did not desire to keep his books locked up or just for his own use but considered them common property, as their authors intended (Epist., 11, p. 104). 2. Epist., Iv, p. 473. 3. Poggii Epistolae, ed. Thomas de Tonellis, 1 (Florence, 1832), p. 179.

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 137 that public libraries be established, presided over by scholars who would prepare correct texts. The voice of Coluccio in behalf of the free use of books was heeded, it appears, when Niccoli left his library, containing many of Coluccio’s manuscripts, to Cosimo de’ Medici for the founding in 1441 of the first public library in modern times in the monastery of San Marco. Some of Coluccio’s manuscripts were copied for him. The evidence for this is that several groups of manuscripts are in the same hand. One scribe wrote four books. His scribes will be discussed

in Chapter X. Of course, some other manuscripts were written specially for him but we cannot prove it because no other books copied by that scribe have been preserved. Salutati’s sons were not interested in his library and sold most of it to various buyers: Cosimo de’ Medici, Leonardo Bruni, Giannozzo

Manetti, but chiefly Niccolé Niccoli. A year after Niccoli’s death in 1437 Coluccio’s heirs had not yet been paid in full." In his will Niccoli named sixteen executors who were to decide the future of the library. Among them were Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici,

Poggio, Leonardo Bruni, Manetti, Carlo Marsuppini, and Ambrogio Traversari. In 1441 they decided to turn the library over to Cosimo, for him to present to the new monastery of San Marco

as a public library. Cosimo agreed to pay Niccoli’s debts. So it happens that today more of Coluccio’s books are to be found among the manuscripts of San Marco now divided between the Laurenziana and the Nazionale libraries of Florence, than elsewhere.?

The list of identified Coluccio manuscripts follows:

1. Epist., 1, p. 552; cf. p. $44. 2. For Niccoli’s will and other documents see G. Zippel, Nicolo Niccoli (Florence,

1890). In his first will of 1430 Niccoli already had in mind the establishment of a public library, but in the monastery of S. Maria degli Angeli. I intend to publish a list of existing Niccoli manuscripts.

138 CHAPTER IX ITALY’ BOLOGNA BIBLIOTECA COMUNALE DELL’ ARCHIGINNASIO

1.] A. 146. Parchment, s. XIV. 26 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-24; of 2, fols. 25-26; one gathering lost at beginning. Vegetius, De re militari, beginning contenderent ad tanta premia (ui, 8),

fols. 1r-26r; below this, in a different hand, 1v, 43 (Nauticorum ... infesta promitentibus).

Fol. 26r, erased: “Liber Colucii pyerii cancellarii florentini.” Erasure (cursive): “Multis quique indignum.” Below this (cursive): “Fidei

nomine amen anno millesimo CCC. Indictione secunda.” Not the date of the manuscript. CESENA BIBLIOTECA MALATESTIANA

2.] S. vi. 4. Parchment, s. XIV, in a notarial hand; perhaps copied at Bologna. 200 fols. Gatherings of 8 (one leaf cut out after fol. 80). Petrus de Crescentiis, Ruralium commodorum libri XU, fols. 1r-164v; Tractatus de medicinis simplicibus, fols. 165r-200Vv.

Fol. rr, top: “302 Carte CC” (302 erased). Fol. 164v, two notes erased; the second was: “Liber Colucii pyeri de Stignano.” At end, two notes erased; they were: “Liber Colucii pyeri de Stignano,” “Liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis.” For Petrus de Crescentiis see (besides the catalogues of Muccioli and Zazzeri) L. Frati, Pier de’ Crescenzi (1233-1321). Studi e documenti (Bologna, 1933), p. 267. The other treatise is Platearius, Circa instans.

I. In the case of less familiar works, reference to publication (especially to Migne) is given but the decision on this point is somewhat arbitrary. Similarly, the bibliography at the end of each description is not meant to be complete; its chief aim is to list the more recent editions that make use of the manuscript and articles that discuss it. References to library catalogues, which often (as in the case of Pelzer’s Vatican catalogue) give the best and fullest descriptions, are not included. Abbreviations are indicated by parentheses only in the case of erased writing of some importance; square brackets indicate conjectural restorations.

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 139 FLORENCE

BIBLIOTECA MEDICEA LAURENZIANA

3.] xu, 23. Parchment, s. XIV. 1 + 149 + 1 fols. Gatherings of 10, fols. 2-51; of 12, fols. 52-63; of 10, fols. 64-83; of 8, fols. 84-99; of 4, fols. 100-103; of 8, fols. 104-135; of 6, fols. 136-141; of 8, fols. 142-149. Written and illuminated in Florence (P. d’Ancona, La Miniatura Fiorentina, 11 [Florence, 1914], no. 17). Four hands: 1. fols. 1r-94v, 146r-149V; 2. fols. 92r-102v; 3. fols. ro4r-145r; 4. (to fill in) fols. 123r, 123v, 132v133V, 134V, 136V, I45v.

Jerome, Oratio pro custodia diei (inc. Mane dum surrexero; PL, 101, p. 1385), fol. rr; Petrarch, two lines of verse from Sen. viii. 6 and a sentence about Augustine from Fam. x. 3, fol. rv; Augustine, Conf, fols. 2r-63r; John Chrysostom, De paenitentia et de reparatione lapsi

(Paraenesis ad Theodorum, 1; PG, 47, p. 277), fols. 63r-69r; Origen, , Homiliae in libro Iesu Nave, 10, 11 (tr. Rufinus), excerpts (PG, 12, p. 880 ff.), fols. 69v-7or; Origen, Tractatus super Iohannem (inc. Vox spiritualis aquile; Johannes Scotus; PL, 122, p. 283), fols. 7or-76v; Origen, Homilia 20 (tr. Rufinus), excerpt (PG, 12, p. 921 ff.), fols. 76v-77r; Jerome, Epist. 22 (PL 22, p. 394), fols. 771-911; Miracula de beata virgine (inc. Apud Constantinopolim Iudeus quidam), fols. 92r-102v; blank, fol. 103; Biblical and other quotations (inc. infirmitas) fols. 104r107v; Augustine, Solil., fols. 1o7v-121v; Aegidius of Assisi, Collationes

(= Dicta beati Aegidii, in Bibl. Franciscana Ascetica, mt [1905]), incomplete, fols. 121v-123r; Bernard of Clairvaux, three excerpts, fol. 123v; Bernard of Clairvaux, De interiore homine (PL, 184, p. 485), fols. 1241-132v; moral excerpts (Seneca, etc.), fols. 132v-133v; Bernard of Clairvaux, In nativitate beatae Mariae (inc. Ave Maria, etc., Syllabas) fols. 134r-136v; Augustine, Speculum (PL, 40, p. 967) fols.

1371-1451; Prophetia Sibille Erithee (sic) (O. Holder-Egger, Neues . Archiv d. Gesell. f. alt. deutsche Gesch., xv [1890], p. 155), fols. 146r148r; Jerome, In Danielem, excerpts, fols. 148v-149v. Fol. rr, top, possible traces of Salutati’s pressmark; the leaves have been trimmed. Fol. 63r, col. 1, before explicit, apparent traces of Salutati’s erased signature under ultraviolet rays (italic is pure guesswork): “Liber Colucii pyerii cancella(r)ii florentini.” Fol. 145v, col. 2: “Liber Colucii pyerii de stignano.” Table of contents by Salutati on flyleaf:

“Confessionum xut libri. Grisostomus de penitentia et reparatione

140 CHAPTER IX lapsi. Ex tractatibus origenis, de libro Iesu nauue, Omelia x et Xt, Super Iohannem, et ex Omelia xx Iesu Nauue. Ieronimus ad Eustochium de virginitate servanda. Miracula beate virginis. Soliloquium Augustini. Collationes fratris egidii. Bernardus de interiore homine. Sermo Bernardi in nativitate beate virginis. Manuale sive speculum Augustini (to which Coluccio later added: hic liber non est Augustini). Sibilla Erithrea. Ieronimi super visiones danielis.” A later hand added the folio numbers. Many Salutati notes. Ownership note (s. XV ex.)

on fol. 1v (erased): “Nicolai michelotii floren(tini) ...” Old library numbers (s. XVI) on flyleaf: s. no. $8; on fol. 1: No. 13. Holder-Egger did not use this text for the Prophetia Sibille Erithree, though it belongs to his “long text” and is older than some of his manuscripts.

4.] xu, 27. Parchment, s. XII (fols. 2-47), XIII (fols. 49-63), XIV (fols. 1, 64-72). Fol. 1 was added to supply a lost leaf. 72 fols. Gatherings of 8 (except first, which is now 1+ 7). Change of hand at fols. ar, 47r, 4or, 641, 6$r, 70r. Also another hand of s. XIV filled in material on fol. 48r. Augustine, Opera: De salutaribus documentis (PL, 40, p. 1047), fols. 1121r; De fide recta (inc. Confiteor me), fol. 21v; De laude caritatis (inc. Caritas fratres), fol. 21v; De caritate (inc. Si igitur), fol. 221; De caritate et concordia (inc. Attendendum), fols. 22r-23r; De peccati recordatione (inc. Bonum est), fol. 23r-23v; Epist. (inc. Ex quo in animum tuum), fols. 23v-24r; Epist. 18, 20, 19, I, 15, 2, 5-9, 14, 13, 10, 4, fols. 24r-32r; De mendacio, fols. 32r-47r; Gregory, Dial., excerpt (inc. Lignum vitae), fol. 47r-47v; recipe (inc. Pulvis domini Frederici), description of spring (inc. Tempore veris nox et dies), fol. 48r; Innocent III, De contemptu mundi (PL, 217, p. 701), fols. 49r-61r; Gregory VII, Contemptus mundi

(= Bernard of Clairvaux, Carmen paraeneticum; PL, 184, p. 1307), fols. 61v-63v; verses (against Ghibellines, on Alexander the Great, etc.), fol. 64r-64v; Innocent III, Epist. (PL, 215, pp. 957, 213), fols. 65r-7or; Tractatus de irregularitate (inc. Oportet sacerdotem), fols. 7or-72Vv.

Fol. rr, top: “278 (?) Carte xxx.” Under ultraviolet rays everything is clear except that the library number may be 218. No signature or notes by Salutati. Erased ownership notes on fol. 1r, bottom, and fol. 72v, bottom. Old library number on fol. 1r: N 12.

5.] Xvi, 31. Parchment, s. XIV. 1+ 277-1 fols. Gatherings of 12, fols. 3-62; of 2, fols. 63-64; of 12, fols. 65-148; of 8, fols. 149-156; of 12,

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY I4I fols. 157-276; of 4, fols. 277-279 (and flyleaf). Written and illuminated in Florence. Cassianus, Coenob. Inst., fols. 3r-58v; table of chapters, fols. 58v-63r; blank, fol. 64; Cassianus, Collationes, with table of chapters before each collatio, fols. 65r-271v; Jerome, Epist. 5 (PL, 30, p. 63), fols. 27ar279V.

Fol. 3r, top: “2 2 2 Carte ccxxvut”; the upper part is trimmed off. The

library number may have been 100 or 188, the first figure being straight and the other two rounded at the bottom. The discrepancy in

the foliation is to be explained in this way: there are traces of foliation : in Roman numerals antedating Salutati. After fol. cLxxx1 a mistake was made by writing cxxxu instead of cLxxxm, and so on, with the result that the last folio is ccxx1x instead of ccLtxx1x. The foliation included two flyleaves at the beginning, of which the first had disappeared in Salutati’s time; he subtracted these from the supposed total of 229, added the flyleaf at end, and got 228. I have followed the old numbering, corrected by adding 50 after the skip. An occasional modern numbering begins with the text (fol. 3), omits the blank (fol. 64), and reaches 276. Fol. 63r, filling out a line at end of table of chapters: “liber Colucii.” Fol. 271v, below explicit: “Liber Colucii pieri.” In different hand: “Liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis.” Fol. 279v, col. 1, filling out line of text above explicit: “liber Colucii p.” (abbreviated so as not to extend beyond column). Below explicit, in different hand (erased): “Liber Cosme de Medicis.” Below this, in capitals: “Liber Petri de Medicis cos. fil.” No Salutati notes except headings on some pages. Old library numbers (s. XV-XVI) on fol. 279v: No. 145 and No. 14. Probably No. 667 in 1495 inventory (Piccolomini No. 274).' Less probably in Modena catalogue:? xx. 2 or. “Iohannis Cassiani de institutis monachorum et quatuor et vigintis collationes patrum et

alia.”

6.] XIx, 23. Parchment, s. XII (but colored initial on fol. 3r added s. XV in Florence). 1 + 55 + 1 fols. Gatherings of 2, fols. 1-2; of 8, fols. 3-50; of 6, fols. 51-55 (and flyleaf). 1. E. Piccolomini, “Inventario della Libreria Medicea privata compilato nel 1495,” Arch. stor. ital., ser. 01, XX (1874), p. SI.

2. This is an unpublished catalogue of the library of St. Mark’s, Florence, made about 1500, now in Modena, which I intend to publish. I quote from my copy.

|

142 CHAPTER IX Apocalypse of John, table of contents, fols. 1r-2v; text, fols. 3r-s5v (PL, 29, p. 893); marginal commentary (fol. Ir, inc. Prima visio est; fol. 3r, inc. Littera sic. Ac si ita commoneret).

No pressmark on fol. ir. Fol. 55v (erased): “Liber S(er) Colucii pieri nota(r)ii de Stignano reddatur ei.” This was erased when there was written in the line above, in capitals: “Liber Petri de Medicis cos. fil.” No Salutati notes. No. 670 in 1495 inventory (Piccolomini No. 295): “Apocalypsis glossata, parvula”; the manuscript is 172 x 126 mm. Less

likely in Modena catalogue: Iv. 12 or.: “Apocalypsis glossata in volumine parvo.”

7.] xx, 54. Parchment, s. XI-XII; Bandini dates it s. XI, Rostagno (in a penciled note in Laurentian copy of Bandini), s. X. 1 + 45 fols. Old numbering, fols. 143-187 but on fol. 179 (37) there is this note: “yste sunt CLXXxvV carte.” Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-40; of 2, fols. 41-42; of 4, fols. 43-

45 (last cut off). Junilius, Instituta regulatoria (PL, 68, p. 15), fols. 1r-8r; Glose per totum alphabetum (inc. A nota prenominis est), fols. 8r-15r, treatise on time (inc. Divisiones temporum XIIII sunt; cf. Bede, De divisionibus temporum, PL, 90, p. 653), fols. 15r-21r; treatise on names (inc. Bibliothecam; Isidorus, Etym. Vi. 3. 2; Vu, I. 2), fols. 21r-22v; treatise on letters, etc., (inc. Qui primum), fols. 22v-23v; Liber genealogus (MGH, AA, Ix, p. 160); fols.

24r-30r (ends: Explicit liber Iunilli, which Mommsen considers the copyist’s error); Isidorus Iunior, Chronica, fols. 30r-34r; “Jerome,” | Chronica (an abridgement of Jerome, Bede, etc. [see below}), fols. 3 4r36r; two lists of kings to year 961 (on which Rostagno based dating of manuscript), fols. 36r-38r; biblical genealogies (inc. Adam cum esset), fols. 381-451; computation ending with King Wamba of Spain (672680), fol. 45r. On flyleaf table of contents (s. XV): “In isto volumine continentur Liber iunillii (to which was added, s. XVI: seu Institutio addis-

cendi scripturam divinam. Chronica Isidori). Liber chronice expositus a beato Ieronimo.” No Salutati pressmark, perhaps because the manuscript was complete in his day and had his pressmark on fol. 1. No Salutati signature but many Salutati notes on fols. 1-9. Old library numbers inside of cover:

n. 218; 16; h. no. 18. No. 694 in 1495 inventory (Piccolomini No. 280).

Junilius: H. Kihn, Theodor von Mopsuestia und Junilius Africanus als

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 143 Exegeten (Freiburg i. B., 1880), pp. 310, 466 ff.; M. L. W. Laistner, Harvard Theological Review, xt (1947), p. 24.

Liber genealogus: edition by T. Mommsen, MGH, AA, 1x (Berlin, 1892), p. 158. Mommsen states that this manuscript is a twin (not a copy) of Laur. S. Mar. Nov. 623 (s. X). In contents fols. 1-30 (143172) of xx, 54 agree in detail with fols. roor-125r of 623 (more so than Mommsen indicates). It is therefore likely that the 142 folios missing at the beginning of xx, 54 contained the same material as fols. 1r-100r of 623, i.c., Isidorus, Etym. Isidorus Iunior: edition by T. Mommsen, MGH, AA, x1 (Berlin, 1894), p. 405. “Jerome”: see T. Mommsen, MGH, AA, xu (1898), p. 233. Lists of kings: MGH, SS Lang (1878), pp. 505 ff.

8.] xxix, 21. Parchment, s. XIII in. 1-+ 57 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-56; of 2, fol. 57 and leaf pasted to cover. Bocthius, Arithmetica, fols. 1r-$7r.

Fol. ir, top: “433 Carte rv.” Fol. $7r: “Liber Colucii pieri.” Below this (s. XV-XVI): “Iste liber est monasterii s(an)c(t)i Sal(vatoris) de sept(imo) ordi(ni)s cyst(erciensis) et dyoc(esis) florentine. Si quis hunc furatus fuerit Anathema sit. Amen.” No Salutati notes. Erased ownership mark (s. XV) on flyleaf. Old library numbers: No. txx corrected

to CLxxxviu, then to CLXXVIII. }

9.) XXX, 21. Parchment, s. XIV, probably written for Salutati. 1 + 39 fols. Gatherings of 8; last leaf pasted to cover.

Pomponius Mela, fols. 1r-28r; Vibius Sequester, fols. 28v-36r; De nominibus Gallicis (Mommsen, Chronica Minora, MGH, AA, Ix, 1,

p. 613); Nomina provinciarum (ibid., p. 535), Notitia Galliarum (ibid., . p. 584), fols. 36r-39r. The last three items were not identified by Ban-

dini. No author or title is given for any of the works in the manuscript; this is one indication that the manuscript was copied for Salutati. He took the last three items for part of Vibius Sequester. Fol. tr, top: “Carte xt”; this number includes the folio pasted to cover at end, which may have been a flyleaf in Salutati’s day. Fol. 39r: “Liber Colucii pieri salutati.” Many Salutati notes on fols. 1-2 only. Fols. 28r, 39r: “Liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis.” Old library number inside of

144 CHAPTER IX cover: No. 411. Probably No. 523 or 472 in 1495 inventory (Piccolomini Nos. 73, 435). See Pl. xm. 2.

Not used by A. Riese, Geographi latini minores (based on Seeck) or Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, vu (Berlin, 1909), p. 652; used for Notitia Galliarum and De nominibus Gallicis by Mommsen, Chronica Minora (MGH, AA, IX), 1, p. 567. Coluccio’s manuscript was copied from Petrarch’s; this is now lost, but a copy of it exists in Ambr. H 14 inf., as shown by the fact that it contains marginal notes whose character shows that they indubitably emanated from Petrarch, as G. Billanovich acutely saw: “Dall’antica Ravenna alle biblioteche umanistiche,” Annuario dell’ Universita cattolica del s. Cuore, Anni accademici 1955-56 | 1956-57, p. 73, especially p. 104.

10.] XXXVI, 47. Parchment, s. XIV, perhaps written for Salutati. 1 (+ 1 recent) + 101 fols. Gatherings of 10, fols. 1-100; of 2, fol. ror and lost fol. 102. Plautus, Amph., As., Aul., Capt., Curc., Cas., Cist., Epid., ending at vs. 668; rest was on lost fol. 102. On flyleaf table of contents (s. XV in.):

“In hoc codice continentur plauti comediae numero vu quarum nomina haec sunt,” etc. Fol. rr, top, partly erased: “438 Carte.” The figures giving the number of folios have been trimmed off. Salutati’s signature may have appeared

on lost fol. 102. No Salutati notes. Probably No. 411 or 418 in 1595 inventory (Piccolomini No. 157, 491).

11.) xxxvi, 49. Parchment, s. XIV, copied at Padua about 1380 for Coluccio. 1+ 73 +1 fols. Gatherings of 10, fols. 1-60; of 14, fols. 61-73 and leaf pasted to back cover. Propertius, fols. 1-73Vv. Fol. tr, top: “77 Carte 73.” Fol. 73v: “Liber Colucii pyeri.” Below this:

“Liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis.” Many Salutati notes and corrections. Old library numbers inside front cover: n. 309, no. 13 (deleted). Probably No. 407 in 1495 inventory (Piccolomini No. 224). Editions by E. Baehrens (Leipzig, 1880), C. Hosius (Leipzig, 1911, 1922,

1932), O. L. Richmond (Cambridge, 1928), H. E. Butler and E. A. Barber (Oxford, 1933). J. P. Postgate, Trans. Camb. Phil. Soc., 1v, 1 (1894), p. 56; R. Sabbadini, Studi ital. fil. class., vm (1899), p. 106; B. L. Ullman, Class. Phil., vi (1911), p. 287; Alice Catherine Ferguson,

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY I4§ The Manuscripts of Propertius (Chicago, 1934); B.L. Ullman, Studies in the Italian Renaissance (Rome, 1955), p. 181.

12.] XLI, 10. Parchment, s. XIV. Florentine illumination. 2+ 68 + 4 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-68 and 4 flyleaves at end. Petrarch, Canzoniere, fols. 1r-68r. Table of first lines on the two flyleaves at beginning. Flyleaf ir, top, under ultraviolet rays: “Car[te].” On fol. 68r the following note (in capitals) was erased: “Liber Petri de Medicis cos. fil.” (this reading is certain and is further assured by the use of capitals in similar inscriptions in other manuscripts; Bandini’s reading of Cosmae, etc., is impossible). This itself is in an erasure of the following: “Liber Colucii S(er) Co[lucii de . . .]. As a reagent has been used by someone, ultraviolet rays do not help. If my reading is correct the original owner was Salutati, who wrote “Liber Colucii...,” which his grandson Coluccio changed as indicated. An inventory of the library of Piero di Medici made in 1456 (E. Piccolomini, Arch. stor. ital., ser. m1, xx1 [1875],

p. 111), mentions “uno canzoniere in cholonnelli, di mano di messer Coluccio.” The reference is presumably to this manuscript but the ascription of the handwriting to Salutati is due to a wrong interpretation of the ownership note (cf. on Florence, Naz., Conv. Soppr. I. v. 25). One note only is by Coluccio: the numeral cccxn in the margin of fol. 67r. Probably No. 388 in 1495 inventory (Piccolomini No. 251). See Pl. vim. 2.

13.] XLV, 27. Parchment, s. XII (s. XIII in., Bandini). 1 + 47 + 1 fols. Gatherings of 8, including flyleaf at end. “Priscian,” Ars lectoria, fols. 1r-47v. On verso of flyleaf (s. XV): “In

isto volumine continetur libellus prisciani in rectorica.” The introduc- | tion is identical with that in Laur. xv1, 5 and xtvu, 8; the text of these manuscripts, attributed in xvi, 5 to Aimericus, seems to be identical with Book ii of xLvu, 27, whose Book i comes from another source.

On fol. tv, at end of the introduction, a poem contains the words “nomen celebrate siguini” (corrected from saguini). See Bandini's reports

on the three manuscripts and, for Aimericus, Thurot in Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibl. Nat., xxu, 2 (1874), pp. 13, 508. A Siguinus was abbot of Casa Dei in 1078 (MGH, Script., vii, p. 443, line 40). 10

146 CHAPTER IX Fol. tr, top: “Carte,” partly trimmed off at top. Fol. 47v: “Liber Colucii pyerii de Stignano Cancellarii florentini.”, Many Coluccio notes on fols. 1-6. Old library numbers on inside cover (s. XVI +): E no. 5; 847; 227; on flyleaf at end: no. 31; 52. Probably No. 366 in 1495 inventory: “Libellus Prisciani in rhetorica,” as above (Piccolomini No. 434).

14.] XLIX, 7. Paper, s. XIV. Copied for Salutati in 1392 at Milan. 267 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-32; of 6, fols. 33-38; of 10, fols. 39-58; of 8, fols. 59-226; of 10, fols. 227-236; of 8, fols. 237-267 (last leaf gone). Various hands: 1. fols. 1-32, 39 ff.; 2. fols. 33-38, etc. Cicero, Fam., fols. 1r-266r; blank, fol. 267. The manuscript was copied

page for page by various hands from Laur. xix, 9, which Coluccio did not own. No pressmark on fol. rr. Fol. 266r, erased ownership mark: “Liber {Colucii pyerii?] Cancellarii florentini.” The name cannot be made out at all but the restoration is certain. Many Salutati notes and corrections. One note at least by Niccold Niccoli: B. L. Ullman, The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script (Rome, 1960), p. 76. The manuscript was in San Marco in Vettori’s time: Petrus Victorius, Epistolarum libri X (Florence, 1586), p. 165. A. Viertel, Die Wiederauffindung von Ciceros Briefen durch Petrarca (Kdnigsberg, 1879). L. Mendelssohn, edition of the letters (Leipzig, 1893), p. xi; he thought that xtrx, 9 came to Florence before Coluccio’s death and was used by him to correct xix, 7. This view was refuted by G. Kirner, in Studi it. di fil. class., x (1901), pp. 399 ff.; he also explained the confusion in the order of the gatherings. O. E. Schmidt, in Rhein. Mus., Xt (1885), p. 613, believed that xurx, 9 bore traces of Coluccio’s signature, but Mendelssohn rightly denied this. In the Laurentian copy of Bandini’s catalogue E. Rostagno added a note in 1890 saying that he saw on the last page “cancellarii florentini,” but I could not see this even under ultraviolet rays. Plate of fols. 38v and 41v in E. Chatelain, Paléographie des classiques latins (Paris, 1885), No. 36.

15.] XLIx, 18. Paper, s. XIV, copied for Salutati, probably in Milan, in 1393. 225 fols. Gatherings of 12, fols. 1-48; of 8, fols. 49-56; of 14, fols. 57-70; of 8, fols. 71-102; of 14, fols. 103-116; of 8, fols. 117-180; of 10, fols. 181-220; of 6, fols. 221-225 (and one cut off). Hand changes at fols. 49, 79, 117, 181.

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY . 147 Cicero, Epist. ad Brut., Q. Fr., Octav., Att.

Fol. tr, no pressmark. Fol. 225v, in a cursive hand to harmonize with that of the text: “hic liber est Colucii pyeri de Stignano,” followed by “Donatus acciaiolus emit a Donato arretino Leonardi filio.” Many Salutati notes. A. Politianus, Miscellaneorum centuria prima (Paris, 1511), cap. 53, fol. 17; Petrus Victorius, Epistolarum libri X (Florence, 1586), Book vu, p- 165; Petrus Victorius, Commentarii in tres libros Aristotelis de arte dicendi (Florence, 1579), p. 692; A. M. Bandini, Ragionamento istorico sopra le collazioni delle fiorentine pandette fatte da Angelo Poliziano (Li-

vorno, 1762), p. lxiii; F. Hoffmann, Der kritische Apparat zu Ciceros Briefen an Atticus (Berlin, 1863); O. E. Schmidt, Die handschriftliche Ueberlieferung der Briefe Ciceros an Atticus, Q. Cicero, M. Brutus in Italien

(Leipzig, 1887); C. A. Lehmann, De Ciceronis ad Atticum epistulis (Berlin, 1892); H. Sjégren, Commentationes Tullianae (Uppsala, 1910);

H. Sjégren, editions of letters to Brutus, Quintus, Atticus (Uppsala, I9IO, I9II, 1916); A. Viertel (see on xix, 7); G. Voigt, in Ber. sachs. Gesell. Wiss., Phil.-hist. cl., xxx1 (1879), p. $3; O. E. Schmidt, in Rhein. Mus., xu (1885), p. 618; O. E. Schmidt, in Phil., tv (1896), p. 719; plate of fol. 64r in Chatelain, No. 34; see Pl. v. 1.

16.] LXv, 35. Parchment, s. XI (s. X, Bandini). Fine illuminations. 157 fols. Gatherings of 2, fols. 1-2; of 8, fols. 3-114; of 3, fols. 115-117;

of 8, fols. 118-141; of 6, fols. 142-157 (and two cut off). Five hands:

1.fols. 1r-96r, 118r-131v; 2. fol. 3v; 3. fols. 97r-117v; 4. fols. 132r147v; §. fols. 147v-157.

Verses on the days of the week (Baehrens, PLM, v, 353), excerpt on distance to the moon, Martianus Capella on alphabet (iii, 261), Notker, De musicis (PL, 131, pp. 1171-1172 B), fol. 1v; Bede, on finger counting

(Opera [Basel], 1563], 1, p. 171), etc., fol. ar; Canons of 743 a.D. (cf. Baronius, Annales Eccl., xu [Lucca, 1742] anno 743, xxi), fol. av; list of popes from 897 to 965, fol. 3r; letter of Bohemund, etc., to Pope Urban II (PL, 151, p. 551), fol. 3v; Prosper, Cronica, fols. 4r-16v; Paulus Diaconus, Historia Romana, fols. 16v-42r; blank, fols. 42v-431; Orosius, Adv. pag., fols. 43v-96r; Iordanes, Romana (begins p. 6, 27 Mommsen), fols. 97r-106v; Iordanes, Getica (ends p. 125, 21 Mommsen), fols. 107r-117v; “Gregory of Tours,” Gesta Francorum (second

edition), fols. 118r-125v; Einhard, Life of Charlemagne, fols. 125v-

148 CHAPTER IX 130r, Gervardus, verses on Einhard (Waitz, ed. 6, p. xxix), fol. 130r; Compendium libri Apollonii, fols. 130r-131v; Paulus Diaconus, Hist. Langobardorum, fols. 132r-157r. On fol. 157v, after an erasure, following note: (s. XIV): “Istud volumen

divisum est in duas partes et ligatum et reparatum et sunt in alia parte hystorie iosephi et Egesippi. Constat ligatura et reparatura utriusque partis de expensis et labore s(olidis) xx.” The Josephus may be txv1, 2 (q. v.). It must have been placed between fols. 117 and 118 of Lxv, 35, as may be inferred from a table of contents written by the text scribe on fol. tv: “In hoc libello continentur Cronica prosperi. Istoria romane (sic) aedita ab Eutropio. Item Istoria romana edita a paulo orosio adversus paganos. Item alia historia romana. Item de origine actibusque getarum. Historiarum Iosephi xx (?) antiquitatis iudaicae. Historiae Egesippi que continentur a tempore machabeorum usque ad excidium Hierusalem. Historia francorum aedita a sancto gregorio turonensi episcopo. historiae Langobardorum. Compendium libri apollonii.” A similar table on fol. ir (s. XV) omits Josephus. Fol. ar, top: “Charte civr.” Salutati considered fol. 1 a flyleaf and did not include it in his count. Fol. 157r, col. 1, erased ownership note,

under ultraviolet rays: “Liber Colucii pier[i] de Stignano.” Few Salutati notes (fols. 26v, 6or). Fol. ir erased (s. XV): “Conventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum Quem habuit a Cosma Johannis de medicis. 239 . . . XXxXI (2) ex parte occidentis.” Fol. 1r, ownership

note including the name of Freschobaldi. Fol. 157r (s. XIV, but not by Salutati): “Carte CLv scripte et m1 pro copertis, hic una et ante u.” In Modena catalogue: XxI. 7 occ. Paulus Diaconus: edition by H. Droysen, MGH, AA, v (Berlin, 1882),

p. xlix; edition by A. Crivellucci, Fonti per la Storia d'Italia, 51 (Rome, 1914), p. xiv; reproduction of fol. 34r on Plate 1; A. Crivellucci, Bull. dell’Ist. stor. ital., 40 (1921), p. 59 (the description of the manuscript is confused with that of Laur. xx, sin. 2). Einhard: edition by G. H. Pertz in MGH, Script., u (Hannover, 1829), p. 438; G. Waitz, Scriptores rerum Germ., ed. 6 by O. Holder-Egger

(Hannover, I9II), p. xxii. Prosper: edition by T. Mommsen, MGH, AA, 1x (Berlin, 1892), pp. 354, 381. He suggests that txvi, 1 may be the missing part containing Josephus but this is impossible, for, as he admits, Lxv, 35 was written in Germany, LXvI, I in southern Italy. Mommsen’s conclusion that the incompleteness of the list of popes (fol. 3r) shows that part of the

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 149 manuscript was lost after fol. 2 seems to me inadmissible. For one thing,

the handwriting does not change; for another, the table of contents, by the first hand, would have taken account of a fairly lengthy complete descriptive list of popes. Historia Apollonii regis Tyri: second edition of A. Riese (Leipzig, 1893), p. xili; E. Klebs, Die Erzahlung von Apollonius aus Tyrus (Berlin, 1899),

p- 103 (the number of the manuscript is wrongly given as 35, 25; corrected on p. 528).

Iordanes: edition by T. Mommsen, MGH, AA, v (Berlin, 1882), p. xlix. Eutropius: edition by H.Droysen, MGH, AA, u (Berlin, 1879), p- XXx.

“Gregory of Tours”: edition by B. Krusch, MGH, SRM, n (Hannover, 1888), p. 229. Orosius: edition by C. Zangemeister, CSEL, v (1882), p. xxi.

17.] LXvI, 2. Parchment, s. XI. 287 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-48; of 6, fols. 49-54; of 8, fols. 55-94; of 2, fols. 95-06; of 8, fols. 97-112; of 6, fols. 113-117 (and one cut off); of 8, fols. 118-165; of 10, fols. 166174 (leaf after 168 cut off); of 8, fols. 175-182; of 10, fols. 183-191 (leaf after 188 cut off); of 8, fols. 192-271; of 6, fols. 272-277; of 8, fols. 278285; of 2, fols. 286-287. Several hands: 1. fols. 1r-80v; 2. fols. 81r-117Vv; 3. fols. 118r-191v; 4. fols. 192r-287Vv. Josephus, Antiq. Iud., fols. 1r-260r; De vetustate Iud., fols. 260r-277v; De bello Iud. (incomplete; ends admonerent, 1. 11, p. 733 B Geneva ed., 1635, = I. 276 Niese), fols. 278r-287v.

Fol. tr, top: “charte cctxxxvu.” This is exactly like the pressmark, in : LXV, 35, but there are dissimilarities between the two volumes which make it doubtful that they were once bound together (see on Lxv, 35).

The hands are similar but different; some of the illumination is similar } but Lxv, 35 is much more fully and handsomely illuminated. The ruling

is not the same, though the writing space is not very different. A few

possible Salutati notes. Possibly No. 526 in 1495 inventory (Piccolomini No. 494), but more probably x. 2 or. in Modena catalogue (“De ant...de vetustate ... liber primus de bello Iudaico”). Ownership by Coluccio by no means certain. The oldest manuscript of De vet. Iud.; see edition by C. Boysen (CSEL, 37, 1898), p. ii.

150 CHAPTER IX 18.] LXXVI, 36. Parchment, s. XII (s. XI, Bandini). Palimpsest. 66 + 1 fols. Gatherings of 9 (fols. 3 and 16 are added), fols. 1-18; of 8, fols. 19-26; of 9 (fol. 28 is added), fols. 27-35; of 8, fols. 36-43; of 9 (fol. 48 is added),

fols. 44-52; of 10, fols. 53-62; of 5, fols. 63-66 and flylcaf. The gatherings were divided among several scribes.

Seneca, Opera: Ben., fols. 1r-35v; Clem., fols. 35v-42r; blank, fols. 42v-43v; Apuleius, Opera: Ascl., fols. 44r-49r; De Platone, fols. 49rsr; De mundo, fols. 55r-61r; De deo Socr. (including prologue from Flor.), fols. 61r-66r. Fol. 1r, top: “353 Carte txvm” (Salutati probably included an extra flyleaf at end, now pasted to cover). Fol. 66r (to fill out last line of text): “Liber iste Colucii pyeri de stignano de salutatis.” Many Salutati notes. Possibly No. 565 (“Seneca de benificiis et alia opera”) or 607 in 1495 inventory (Piccolomini No. 466, 65). Seneca: Ben., ed. C. Hosius (Leipzig, 1914), p. xii. Apuleius: ed. A. Goldbacher (Vienna, 1876), p. viii; ed. P. Thomas (Leipzig, 1908), p. xii. 19.] Lxxvu, 6. Parchment, s. XIII (France); fol. 50 and initials on fols. 1r and 1v added s. XV. 1 + 63 + 1 fols. and a small insertion after fol. 30.

Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-63 and last flyleaf. Fol. 50 lost and néw one supplied s. XV in. Introduction to Macrobius, fols. 1r-tv; Cicero, Somn. Scip., fols. tv4v; Macrobius, Comm. in Somn. Scip., fols. 4v-63r. Fol. ir, top: “54 carte Lxum.” Fol. 63v: “Liber Colucii pyerii Cancellariit Florentini.” Old library number inside end cover: 80. Possibly No. 353, 363, or 361 in 1495 inventory (Piccolomini No. 190, 193, 242).

20.] LXXvIII, 22. Parchment, s. XIV (s. XV in., Bandini), probably written for Salutati. 1 + 24 + 1 fols. Gatherings of 10, fols. 1-20; of 4, fols. 21-24. “Boethius,” De disciplina scholarium (PL, 64, p. 1223).

Fol. ir, top: a number has been erased which is not clear even under ultraviolet rays; possibly 87. It is uncertain whether the rest of the pressmark of Salutati is there. On fol. 24v there is a double erasure; the last writing was: “Liber pieri S(er) Colucii de Salutatis.” The last word is

over an erased Stignano. The original writing was, therefore, some-

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 151 thing like “Liber Colucii pyeri de Stignano.” The later owner was Coluccio’s oldest son Piero, who died in 1400. No Salutati notes. On fol. 24v erased ownership note of monastery of St. Salvator similar to that in xxrx, 21. See Pl. x.1. For the author, sce Paul Lehmann, Pseudo-antike Literatur des Mittelalters

(Leipzig, 1927), p. 27.

21.) Marc. 38. Parchment, s. IX. 2+ 164 fols. (numbered 165 because the numbering skips from 139 to 141). Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-72; of 4, fols. 73-76; of 8, fols. 77-164.

Donatus, De tropis (Keil, GL, 1v, p. 399), fols. 1r-3r; Grammatice artis nomina Grece et Latine notata (inc. Poeta vates), fol. 3r-3v; Difinitiones rerum quae obscurae sunt in libris catholicis (inc. Aeconomicum dis-

pensatorem), fols. 3v-8r; Pompeius, Commentum (Keil, GL, v, pp. 95-

310, 19), fols. or-76v; “Abavus” glosses, fols. 77r-126v; “Ab absens” ! glosses, fols. 127r-145v: Eucherius, Formulae spiritalis intellegentiae, Instructiones (PL, 50, p. 727), fols. 146r-152v; Junilius, Instituta regula-

toria (PL, 68, p. 15), fols. 153r-16ar; Isidorus, Diff., ii (ed. Arevalo, [1802], p. 77), fols. 162r-165v. Fol. 11, top, erased pressmark, of which only “Carte... m” (cLxm?) can be made out under ultraviolet rays. Fol. 165v erased ownership note under ultraviolet rays: “Colucii Pyerii de Sal[utatis].”. Many Salutati notes. Flyleaf 1v (s. XV): “39. De 29 banco ex parte occidentis,” followed by table of contents (s. XV): “In hoc volumine continentur infrascripti tractatus, scilicet: Tractatus quidam grammaticalis (De Figuris added later) de litteris et sillabis et pedibus et accentibus et posituris. (Diffinitiones quorundam dictorum que sunt obscuri in libris sacris added later). Tractatus quidam de otto partibus orationis (secundum ordinem Donati added later). Tractatus de barbarismo sologismo

tropo ceterisque figuris (t. pompei super donato added later). Liber quidam expositionum vocabulorum sacre scripture (per alphabetum added later). Liber Eucherii episcopi de formulis spiritualis intelligentie.

Libelli duo Iunilii de declaratione divine legis primosio episcopo directi. Libellus quidam de differentiis quorundam vocabulorum sacre scripture.” “Conventus Sancti Marci de Florentia ordinis predicatorum. De hereditate Nicolai de Nicolis Florentini viri doctissimi.” In Modena

catalogue: xx1x. Io occ. See Pl.1. 1. | Pompeius: H. Keil, Grammatici Latini, v (Leipzig, 1868), p. 87.

1§2 CHAPTER IX Glosses (fols. 3, 77, 127): G. Goetz, Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, 1

(Leipzig, 1923), p. 102; IV (1889), p. xxvii. |

Junilius: H. Kihn, Theodor von Mopsuestia und Junilius Africanus als Exegeten (Freiburg i. B., 1880), pp. 310, 466 ff.; M. L. W. Laistner, Harvard Theological Review, xt (1947), p. 24.

22.] Marc. 125. Parchment. s. XII and (fol. 80) XII-XIII. 7 + 85 +1 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-79 (last, probably blank, cut off); of 6, fols. 80-85. Hand changes at fols. 9 and 80. Aristotle, Categoriae (tr. Boethius), fols. 1r-15r; Aristotle, Peri ermenias (tr. Boethius), fols. 15r-21v; Boethius, De diff. top., i-iii, fols. 21v-39r; Boethius, De syllogismo cat., de syll. hyp., fols. 39r-79v; Boethius, De diff. top., iv, fols. 80r-85v. Fol. 1r, top, thoroughly erased pressmark under ultraviolet rays clearly

reads: “95 Carte 80.” Therefore fols. 80-85 were not included in the volume when it was in Salutati’s library. A few Salutati notes and titles. On flyleaf ir (s. XV): “Conventus sancti marci de florentia,” above which number 6; on verso, number 13 and “go. de xm (i. r.) banco. ex parte occidentis,” followed by table of contents (s. XV): “In hoc volumine continentur infrascripti libri, scilicet: Categorie seu liber predicamentorum Aristotelis. Liber per iermenias eiusdem. Liber Sillogismorum categoricorum boetii. Tractatus quidam de topicis differentiis.” “Conventus Sancti Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum. Ex hereditate docti viri Nicolai de Nicolis.” In Modena catalogue: XIII. 16 Occ.

23.] Marc. 165. Parchment, s. XIV, probably written for Salutati. 1+ 58+ 1 fols. Gatherings of 10, fols. 1-40; of 6, fols. 41-46; of Io, fols. 47-56; of 3, fols. 57-58 and flyleaf.

Boethius, Comm. in Top. Cic., fols. tr-43v; blank, fols. 441-46v; Boethius, De diff. top., 1-mt and first line of tv, fols. 471-58v. The initials and titles were not added in De diff. top.

Fol. rr, top: “391 Carte tvut.” Very few Salutati notes. Flyleaf v (s. XV): “7x. de xm (i. r.) banco. ex parte occidentis.” Table of contents: “Commentum Boetii super Thopica Tullii. Boetius de Thopicis differentiis.” “Conventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum. Ex hereditate Nicolai de Nicolis viri doctissimi. Ponatur in B. xm (changed to 9) occidentis.” In Modena catalogue: xml. 15 occ.

mull dee -aqucddabon: disepedue 9 Ehophue quartafidcceromey A e poler de P Om MAONIWA, MOTHA’ q- 177 ac ce ph ene bales . _ - : . ee pete

“op oce-Iny seme mined brace: face forubie haces aa . . nk whe’atone: bse era yee rum Fpanileguin p OY pofunr numeqn gmat ; uchae doccuy: us eS iylane Sio-d2ambo J PUmney~t commuayny” . UT VOT: uber: der ) Omer neminr - en net |

nd ymacionit” . requis | dere nomimacxiuumn finden. a nom plural, ; Cag « ,

Aon momins . nequareeyone desert emp ) coed { emp AIT eee | Ay murders ener Ae. WOW y Pte prreruyre7~ aliquaromina aeGer * : a?

von ean or pl pal

..,.i.

S) oye NoueN rabey crip pleyer: Cryo pubis: {rvs anys SEBS. nee

sin une mera ren fn

rey" Femmim Legrmifzamen. bimeuoy-\-hoc 6 wilud ov gy .

ATPAE. , \eem nomen devo ponamorept - ae TU. arynuy renee | nae a fine momma: numery tere miftin ght ee puluy Pamqury, shauands -

reer, abrejnan do meme irre fin agtiy ccc parcluey oom pomp. pF

ncodecima obferuare- nre(piaencey yO : 7

oft Star Lant ab abe 7 af: pire fegrega AIT Ar Woes qe . . - | te utero rept Ex COmuTiICaaone quafto . ido eps iY

Cfucfacco: - irineuf lugdanen fit gellien . , ene |

wiv-dicenf ¢acem uecerer raceebrape—- | Oo zfeprqut polleee fal gordtecro Principe ? Tolsicarp , o EPO POIMAHO comunicaueric: pebslarr . Amueetus mo

-. cuiplequ afro deumanger: ficurea 5 | Cufebins - -

Po rig Lbredocer ‘CQaida rere ficeecliax ob, fe eyuce barre chem “g aida IVI USTD era, : ” | _ . | bs

um caf Lo diebarre d t(fonabanradc: roa” ; | on P11. 1. FLorence, Laur. Marc. 38, fol. 29r. Coluccio’s notes. See p. 151. 2, FLORENCE, Laur. Marc. 383, fol. 147r. Coluccio’s notes. See p. 150.

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 1$3 24.] Marc. 166. Parchment, s. XII. 1 + 114 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 18; of 10, fols. 9-18; of 8, fols. 19-114. Boethius, De top. diff., fols. 1r-21v; treatise on logic (inc. Ex quattuor significationibus), fols. 21v-24r; Cicero, Top., fols. 24r-32r; Boethius, De divisione, fols. 32v-40r; Boethius, De diffinitione, fols. 40r-49r1; Boethius, Intro. ad syll. cat., fols. 49v-65r; Boethius, De syll. hyp., fols. 65r-86v; Porphyrius, Isagoge (tr. Boethius), fols. 86v-91v; Aristotle, Categoriae (tr. Boethius), fols. gtv-1oor; Aristotle, Peri ermenias (tr. Boethius), fols. toor-tosv; Boethius, Intro. ad syll. cat. (incomplete; to PL, 64, p. 783 B; end of gathering), fols. ro6r-114v.

Fol. rr, top, erased pressmark: “94 Carte 114.” Fol. 114v erasure of “Liber Colucii Pyerii Cancellarii Florentini,” in which was written “Georgii Antonii Vespucii lib(er).” Salutati added page headings but few notes. Flyleaf v: “Conventus S. Marci de Florentia ordinis predicatorum habitus a fratre Georgio Antonio Vespucio professo ciusdem conventus 1477,” followed by table of contents: “Topica Boetii et Topica Ciceronis. Boetius in quinque voces Porphyrii.” “Banco 9 (i. r.) occidentis.” In Modena catalogue: xu. 19 occ. 25.] Marc. 209. Parchment, s. XI-XII (s. XI, Mommsen). 1 + 53 + 2 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-53 and two flyleaves at end (another cut off). Flyleaf at beginning is part of an older manuscript (s. X-XI) with prayers.

Hand changes at fol. srv. Solinus, fols. 1r-51r; Martinus Dumiensis, De quattuor virtutibus (in Haase’s Seneca, m1, p. 468), fols. s1v-53Vv.

Fol. ir, top, erased pressmark of which only “Carte” can be made out under ultraviolet rays. Fol. 51r, erased ownership note: “Liber Colucii pyeri Cancellarii florentini.” In the erasure was written: “Iste liber est conventus Sancti Marci de florentia,” etc. Fol. 53v, short erasure, pos-

sibly of Coluccio’s name. No Salutati notes. Flyleaf v (s. XV): “68. de | 22 (i. r.) banco. Ex parte occidentis.” “Iste liber est Conventus S. Marci

de florentia ordinis predicatorum. De hereditate Nicolai de Nicolis

Florentini viri doctissimi.” Similarly on fols. ir, str (s. XV ex.). Flyleaf v, table of contents (s. XV ex.): “Iulius Solinus de situ or-

bis terrarum et de mirabilibus mundi. Martini episcopi ad Regem Mironem de quattuor virtutibus.” In Modena catalogue: xxm. 5 Occ.

Mommeen, Solinus, ed. 2 (1895), p. xxxiii. Critical edition of Martinus

154 CHAPTER IX by Claude W. Barlow, Martini episcopi Bracarensis Opera omnia (New

Haven, 1950), p. 204. ,

26.] Marc. 264. Parchment, s. XIV (fols. 37v-4o0v, s. XV). Some pages palimpsest. 1 + 71 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-16; of 10, fols. 17-26; of 8, fols. 27-34; of 6, fols. 35-40; of 8, fols. 41-71 (last cut off). Gathering

of 10 lost after fol. 8, as fol. 9 is numbered 19 in an old numbering. Gathering of 6 lost after fol. 40. Four hands: 1. fols. 1r-8v, 25v-37r, 4ir-71r; 2. fols. gr-24r; 3. fols. 24r-25v; 4. (s. XV) fols. 37v-4ov, 7117IV.

Priscian, De figuris numerorum (Keil, GL, m, p. 405-417), fols. 1r-4v; Priscian, Praexercitamina, fols. 4v-8v (incomplete, to Keil, GL, m, 439, 14 cui; a gathering of 10, including the rest of Priscian, Severianus, and Valerius, was lost); Cicero, Part., fols. 9r-22r; Martianus Capella, v (De rhetorica), fols. 221-371; Augustine, De dialectica (PL, 32, pp. 14091414 esse verborum, after which a gathering of 6 has been lost), fols. 37v-40v; Fortunatianus, Ars rhetorica, Augustine, De rhetorica (Halm, RIM, pp. 80 ff.), fols. 41r-71r; Martianus Capella, De elocutione (asin * editio princeps — cf. Halm, p. 151, note — but incomplete: V. 508-512 Africani), fol. 71r-71Vv.

Fol. rr, top: “Carte Lxxxu.” Probably a gathering of 10 missing after fol. 9 was there in Salutati’s time, whereas the gathering of 6 after fol. 40, containing fifteenth-century writing, had not been added; fols. 38-40 were blank when the manuscript was in Salutati’s possession. This would give 81 folios, to which Salutati may have added the flyleaf to get 82. Many Salutati notes and corrections. Flyleaf v, table of contents (s. XV): “Priscianus de numeris et ponderibus. De preexercitamen-

tis rethorice. Iulii Severini rethorica. Valerii ad rufinum. Tullius de partitione oratoria. Rethorica Martiani capelle. Conchiriadis fortunaciani consulti (sscr.) Scolia in rethoricis.” The “Valerius ad Rufinum” is the “Epistola ne ducat uxorem,” by Walter Mapes (s. XIII), sometimes printed among Jerome’s works (PL, 30, p. 262); cf., e.g., M. Hertz, ed. of A. Gellius, m (Berlin, 1885), p. xxx; Novati, Epist., i, p. 147; Paul Lehmann, Pseudo-antike Litteratur des Mittelalters (Leipzig, 1927), p. 23. “Conventus Sancti Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum, habitus a fratre Georgio Antonio Vespuccio filio nativo dicti conventus. 1499. Banco xxv occidentis.” In Modena catalogue: xxv. 26 OCC.

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 155 Claudio Leonardi, I codici di Marziano Capella (Milan, 1959-1960), p. 48.

27.] Marc. 284. Parchment, s. X. 78 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-64; of 10, fols. 65-74; of 6, fols. 75-78 and two cut off. Hand changes at fol. arr. Apuleius, Opera: De deo Socr. (including prologue from Flor.), fols. 1r-

qv; Asclep., fols. 7v-19r; De Platone, fols. 19r-31r; De mundo, fols. 31r-40r; Pliny, Epist., i. 1-v. 6 (v. 7-8. 4 added s. XV in.), fols. 41r77v; blank, fol. 78. Fol. rr, top, under ultraviolet rays: “Carte txxvim” (including one of the flyleaves cut offat end). Perhaps this is the manuscript mentioned ina will made in 1338 at Arezzo (Arch. stor. ital., ser. v, 1v [1889], p. 250): “Appolegium, de deo Socratis, cum epistolis Plinii in uno volumine.”

In that case Coluccio may have obtained it through the Arretine Domenico Bandini, who quotes Pliny from a manuscript of this class, and who sent Coluccio a list of his books in 1377 (Novati, Epist., 1, p. 276). Salutati notes chiefly at beginning. In Modena catalogue: XX. 6 OCC.

Apuleius: ed. A. Goldbacher (Vienna, 1876), p. viii; ed. P. Thomas (Leipzig, 1908), p. x1. Pliny: ed. H. Keil (Leipzig, 1870), p. x1; ed. E. T. Merrill (Leipzig,

1922), p. x; ed. M. Schuster (Leipzig, 1933), p. v.; ed. S. E. Stout (Bloomington, 1962), p. 18. F. E. Robbins, Class. Phil., v (1910), p-. 467; E. T. Merrill, Class. Phil., x (1915), p. 17; E. A. Lowe and

Figs. 8-12. :

E. K. Rand, A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger

(Washington, 1922), p. 44 and Pl. xv, xvi; B. L. Ullman, The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script (Rome, 1960), pp. 16 ff. and

28.] Marc. 310. Parchment, s. XIII. 1 + 82 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. | 1-32; of 6, fols. 33-44; of 8, fols. 45-60; of 8 + 1 (after fol. 67), fols. 6169; of 8, fols. 70-77, of 6 (one inside leaf cut off), fols. 78-82. William of Conches, Super Priscianum (inc. In principio huius artis), fols.

Ir-82v. Fol. rr, top, no visible pressmark but may have been erased or trimmed off. Fol. 82v: “Liber Colucii de Salutatis.” No Salutati notes. Flyleaf v s. XV): “232. de 29 (i. r.) banco. ex parte occidentis. Glosule G. concensis super priscianum maiorem. Conventus S. Marci ordinis predi-

156 CHAPTER IX catorum de florentia. de hereditate Nicolai de Nicolis viri doctissimi florentini.” In Modena catalogue: xxix. 6 occ. I was able to answer E. Jeauneau’s inquiry as to the whereabouts of Coluccio’s manuscript of William of Conches’ commentary on Priscian; see Jeauneau’s

p. 212. ,

article in Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale, xxvu (1960),

29.] Marc. 328. Parchment, s. XIV; perhaps written for Salutati. 1 + 116 + 3 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-116 and 3 flyleaves (and 1 cut off at end). Macrobius, Sat., fols. 1r-116v; Franciscus Diacetus (Francesco Cattani), Expositio in versus Boethi de cons. (iii. M. 9. 13) (s. XVI; in his Opera

omnia |Basel, 1563], p. 324), flyleaves 1 and 2 at end (= fols. II7-118).

Fol. ir, top: “221 Carte cum.” This is due to an error of Coluccio’s, who probably counted gatherings and missed two (i.e., 16 fols.). Fol. 79v: KOAYKIOX (Coluccio’s name in Greek because of the Greek words in text and margin); fol. r16v: “Liber Colucii pyerii de Stignano Cancellarii Florentini.” Very many Salutati notes. Laur. 11, 9 was corrected from Marc. 328; many of Salutati’s marginal notes were copied. Flyleaf v (s. XV): “223. In 25 (5 i.r.) banco. ex parte occidentis, Macrobii theodosii Saturnaliorum liber convenctus sancti Marci de florentia

ordinis predicatorum quem habuit a cosma de medicis de hereditate Nicolai nicholi.” In Modena catalogue: xxv. 7 occ. 30.] Marc. 383. Parchment, s. X-X. Some or all words worked over on

some pages; this makes the writing look more recent. 177 + 1 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-176; of 2, fol. 177 and flyleaf. Cassiodorus, Hist. eccl., fols. 1r-177Vv. Fol. 1r, top: “325 Carte cLxxvil,” apparently including flyleaf. Salutati

notes on fols. 2-14. In Modena catalogue: xx. 8 occ. See Pl.1. 2. 31.] Marc. 517. Parchment, s. XII. 1 + 103 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-40; of 7, fols. 41-47 (fol. 47 should be after fol. 40; its companion ~ which would have been at the end of the gathering — was cut off, probably because it was blank); of 8, fols. 48-103. The first gathering is

numbered 1 (by the first hand), the second vm; thus six gatherings have been lost. A note (s. XIV) on fol. 8v reads: “hic deficunt v quaterni.”

Two or more gatherings missing at end. Hand changes at fol. 48.

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 1$7 Iohannes Diaconus, Vita S. Gregorii, fols. 1r-46v (part lost from PL, 75, p. 79 C data praeceptione to 162 C saccellarius ego sum); Bede, Expos. in parab. Sal., fols. 48r-g1r; Jerome, Comm. in Eccles. (to PL, 23, p. 1111 c Sed melius), fols. 91r-103v. Fol. rr, top, erased pressmark under ultraviolet rays: “419 Carte scripte cu.” This indicates that the missing parts had been lost before Salutati.

Fol. 46v, erased ownership note under ultraviolet rays: “Colu... pyeri...” No Salutati notes. Flyleaf v, table of contents (s. XV): “Vita sancti gregorli papae. Expositio bedae presbyteri in parabolas salomonis. Commentarium beati hieronymi in ecclesiasten salomonis.”

Above this: “62. de m (i.r.) banco. ex parte orientis. ponatur... erased).” Below: “Conventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum. Ex hereditate Nicolai de Nicolis Florentini viri doctissimi.” In Modena

catalogue: XXII. 6 or. |

32.] Marc. 538. Parchment, s. XII. 1 + 224 fols. An old folio numbering beginning on fol. 15, with a change of hand, suggests that two separate manuscripts were combined (before Salutati’s time). Gatherings of 6, fols. 1-6; of 8, fols. 7-110; of 10, fols. 111-120; of 2, fols. 121-122; of 8, fols. 123-210; of 5, fols. 211-215; of 8 + 1, fols. 216-224. Three hands: 1. fols. 1r-14v; 2. fols. 15r-121v, 123r-224v; 3. fol. 122r. Cyprian, De sacramento dominici calicis (Epist. 63; PL, 4, p. 383), fols. Ir-gr; Cyprian, Cena (PL, 4, p. 1007), fols. 9r-14v; Augustine, Opera: De vita Christiana, fols. 15-314; De paenitentia (PL, 39, p. 1535), fols. 31v-44r; Sermo de paenitentia (PL, 39, p. 1713), fols. 44r-45r; De videndo deo (PL, 33, p. 596), fols. 45r-70v; Enchiridion, fols. 7ov-121v; excerpt

on vestments (inc. Induitur autem diaconus dalmaticam), fol. 1221; Augustine, De conflictu vitiorum atque virtutum, fols. 1231-136v;

Augustine, De decem cordis (Sermo 9; PL, 38, p. 75), fols. 136v-152v; | De miraculis sancti Basilii (inc. Elladius quidam beatae memoriae; cf. a different version in PL 73, pp. 302-307, Ch. viii-ix), fols. 152v-158v;

Vita sancti Theophili (cf. Bibl. hag. lat., No. 8121), fols. 158v-170r; Bede, Hist. eccl. v, 12-13, fols. 170r-175v; Vita Iohannis et Arcadii heremitarum (inc. Omnibus haec legentibus), fols. 175v-178v; Isidorus, Synonyma (Soliloquia), fols. 179r-209r; Vita sancti Alexi (cf. Bibl. hag. lat.,

No. 287), fols. 2o9r-215v; Petrus Damiani, Miracula beatae Mariae (inc. Clericus quidam nevernensis), fols. 216r-224Vv.

Fol. tr, top: “320 Carte ccxxvi.” Fol. 224v: “Liber Colucii pyeri de

158 CHAPTER IX Stignano.” Few Salutati notes. Fol. 215v: “Liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis.” Flyleaf v (s. XV ex.): “Iste liber est Conventus sancti marci de

Florentia ordinis predicatorum habitus a Cosma de medicis ex hereditate Nicholai nicholi. Ponatur in B. xvum (i. r.),” followed by table of contents. In Modena catalogue: x1Ix. 5 or.

33.] Marc. 561. Parchment, s. XI. 1 + 151 fols., with early foliation (s. XIV) that skips from 35 to 39 and duplicates 68, thus reaching 153. Gatherings of 8, with last folio cut off. Gregory, Hom. in Ezechielem, fols. tr-153v (as numbered); verses on the Apostles (s. XIV; inc. Petrus Romanis reseravit), fol. 153v. Fol. rr, top, erased pressmark: “145 Carte 152.” Fol. 153v erasure of three and a half lines, second of which began: “Liber Colucii pyerii.” Salutati notes on earlier pages. Flyleaf (s. XV): “227. de m (i. r.) banco. ex parte orientis. Gregorius super ezechielem. Conventus s. marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum. de hereditate Nicolai de nicolis Florentini viri doctissimi.” In Modena catalogue: XXI. 7 or. 34.] Marc. 566. Parchment, s. XIV. Written and illuminated in Florence (D’Ancona, Min. Fior., u, No. 88). 124 fols., including flyleaves, num-

bered 1 + 123; originally two separate manuscripts (combined by Salutati) of 1 + 38 + 1 and 81 + 3, second part with early separate numbering. Gatherings of 10, flyleaf and fols. 1-19; of 8, fols. 20-35; of 4, fols. 36-39; of 12, fols. 40-123. Hand changes at fols. 10 and 40; another hand filled in the flyleaf and fol. 39v; still another, fol. 38v.

Verses (Ausonius, ed. R. Peiper, p. 406), flyleaf; commentary on Psalms (inc. Secundum quod dicit glosa), fols. 1r-25v; treatise on vices (inc. Ex superbia procedunt), fols. 26r-29r; De sacramentis ecclesie (inc. Sacramentum dicitur sacre), fols. 29r-34r; Martinus Dumiensis, De quattuor virtutibus (in Haase’s Seneca, m1, p. 468), fols. 34r-37r; Dicta Senece

(Publilius Syrus, with interpolations; inc. Age sic), fols. 37r-38v; Italian poem (inc. Io mi nutrico), fol. 38v; Gregory, Dial., fols. 39v121v (fol. 39v has a table of chapters of Book 1 added after the two manuscripts were combined); blank (except for a short later addition), fols. 122-123. Fol. rr, top: “143 Carte cxxmm” (143 deleted). Fol. 38v: “Liber Colucii pierii de Stignano quem emit a ser Lamberto floreno 1 auri 1370 de mense lulii.” Fol. 98r, after incipit written in red by Coluccio: “Colucius

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 1$9 pyerus.” Fol. 121v erased ownership note under ultraviolet rays: “Liber Colucii Pycrii que(m) emi a fr(atre) Diedi per flor(enos) m auri die vt Martii reddatur ei.” Some Salutati notes. Fol. 121Vv (i. r.): “Liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis.” Flyleaf v (s. KV): “62. de xxi (i. r.; 19 sscr.) banco. ex parte orientis. In hoc volumine continentur infrascripta opera, scilicet: Notula quaedam pulcra sine titulo super omnes psalmos. Notula quaedam de vitiis et virtutibus. Tractatulus Martini episcopi ad regem Malonem de quattuor virtutibus (Quedam auctores Senece added later). Item quidam rithmus sive sonettus in vulgari. Lamentatio beate Marie ad filium in cruce. Libri dyalogorum s. gregorii pape. Conventus S. Marci de Florentia ordinis predicatorum. Quem librum habuit a Cosma Iohannis de Medicis.” In Modena catalogue: xxu. 5 or. See Pl. m. 4.

For Martinus see No. 25. , 35.] Marc. 600. Parchment, s. XII. 2 + 185 + 1 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-184; of 1, fol. 185. Gatherings are numbered 1I-vI, fols. 1-48; 1xvul, fols. 49-184, but hand does not change at fol. 49. Jerome, Hebraicarum Quaest. (PL, 23, p.983), fols. 1r-39r; Jerome, Epist. 78 (PL, 22, p. 698), fols. 39v-48v; Bede, Expositio in parab. Sal., fols. 49r-122v; Jerome, Comm. in Eccles., fols. 122v-166r; Jerome, Expositio

super Ezechielen de Salomone, fragment (inc. Illa enim), fol. 166v; John Chrysostom, Expositio super Ezech. (inc. Salomon ille), fol. 166v; Jerome, In Marc. Evang. (PL, 30, p. 609), fols. 1671-18 5r.

Fol. ir, top, erased pressmark, under ultraviolet rays: “219 Carte CLxx??” No Salutati notes. Flyleaf 2v (s. XV): “74. de 14 (i. r.) banco. ex parte orientis. ponatur in banco?” (numeral erased). Table of contents: “In hoc volumine continentur infrascripti tractatus, scilicet: Tractatus

Ieronimi presbiteri de questionibus hebraicis. Eiusdem de Mansionibus | israhelitici populi. Expositio bede presbiteri parabolarum salomonis. Expositio Ieronimi in libro ecclesiastes. Expositio Ieronimi evangelii evangeliste Marci.” “Conventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum. Ex hereditate Nicolai de Nicolis.” In Modena catalogue: XIV. 2 or.

36.] Marc. 603. Parchment, s. XIV, written for Salutati. 2 + 102 + 1 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-102 and flyleaf (and one cut off).

160 CHAPTER IX Jerome, De situ et nom. loc. Hebr. (PL, 23, p. 903), fols. 1r-4or; Jerome, De nom. Hebr. (PL, 23, p. 815), fols. 411r-1o02v.

Fol. ir, top, erased pressmark under ultraviolet rays: “66 (362) Carte 2222” A few Salutati notes on fols. 1 and 2. Flyleaf 2v in hand of Salutati: “Ieronimus De locis. De nominibus hebreis.” Fol. to2v, before explicit, erased: “Liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis” (part supplied by conjecture). Flyleaf 2v: “De bancho xm (ex xm corr.) ex parte orientis.” “Iste liber est conventus sancti Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum dono habitus a M. C. Cosma de medicis.” In Modena catalogue: xm.

tr or. See Pl. xu. 1. 37.] Marc. 619. Parchment, s. (XI-)XII. 2 + 188 + 1 fols. but fols. 9, 22, 29 are unnumbered and numbering skips from 54 to 56; the numbered total is therefore 186 instead of 188. Gatherings of 8, numbered, fols. 1-184 (182 as numbered); of 4, fols. 185-188. Augustine, In Ioannis Evang. (PL, 35, p. 1379), fols. 1r-186v (as numbered). Table of contents on flyleaves by first hand. Fol. 1r, top: “378 Carte cLxxxvil.” Fol. 186v (as numbered): “Liber Colucii pyeri de Salutatis Cancellarii Florentini.” Below this: “Liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis de Florentia.” No Salutati notes. Flyleaf: “De xv banco. ex parte orientis.” “Iste liber est Conventus S. Marci de

florentia ordinis predicatorum. Quem habuit a Cosma Iohannis de Medicis. 43.” In Modena catalogue: xv. 8 or. 38.] Marc. 626. Parchment, s. XII. Two separate manuscripts (fols. 1162, 163-224) bound together after Salutati’s time. 1 + 225 fols. (num- | bered 224 because two folios are numbered 114). Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-159 (as numbered); of 4, fols. 160-162 and leaf lost at beginning; of 8, fols. 163-218; of 6, fols. 219-224. Hand changes at fol. 163. Augustine, Sermones super evang. (De verbis Domini et apostoli; the

64 + 1 sermons listed in PL, 39, pp. 2429-2431), fols. 1r-126r (as numbered); Augustine, De sermone in monte, with retractatio (PL, 34, p- 1229; lost leaf before 160 contained p. 1303, bottom, cito enim, to p. 1306, top, non ergo), fols. 126r-162v; Augustine, Liber dialogorum (Augustinus et Orosius, apparently the same work asin Brit. Mus. Add. 24902, fol. 35v: Interrogationes Orosii et responsiones Augustini, which correctly

describes this work), fols. 163r-177r; Augustine, De decem chordis (Sermo 9; PL, 38, p. 75), fols. 177r-187r; Ambrose, Trin., fols. 187r-

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\d . a Co O .aye * ¢ e GS Q ‘”-.«8ae ae > loa) . : > ~~ -. 4 XO O se q ’ oS 2f “a. ‘ . . ¢ . wa e bd cae bud cos O , laser? . e BK ty Md ‘ > eS ' was) wes —— yA +S ~ . 1 . bse ; > eon 7 ‘ * N a:a See PRBS sais H nn ee , 4 . :PB ee ee, ia e . an “ Se te , @ . pe : . , — Bo d ; * : Bet 4or*«8 ys :& aad; |.Yo ..an .“ om egy -..% a se Se . . ; wa : ? 4 C , . : — in =

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COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 161 205r; Augustine, De conflictu vitiorum atque virtutum (PL, 40, p: 1091), fols. 205r-214r; Passio sancti Thomae Cantuarensis (inc. Ecclesiam), fols.

214f-221v; sermon based on one of Anselm (PL, 159, p. 319), fols. 221Vv-224r.

Fol. ir, top: erased pressmark, under ultraviolet rays: “Carte crx1”(?).

Fol. 163r, top: “Carte rx.” No Salutati notes. Flyleaf v (s. XV): “ponatur in banco 17 orientis. 28. de xvui (i. r.; X sscr.) banco. ex parte orientis. In hoc volumine continentur infrascripta opera, scilicet: Sermones S. Augustini episcopi super quibusdam sententiis trium evangelistarum, scilicet, Mattheum, Lucam, et Iohannem. Liber eiusdem de

Sermone domini in monte. Dyalogus Orosii et Augustini. Liber eius- | dem de decem cordis. Liber S. Ambrosii de Trinitate. Liber Augustini de Conflictu vitiorum et virtutum. Passio S. Tome Archiepiscopi canturiensis. Hunc librum dedit Cosmas de Medicis Conventui S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum.” Fol. 163r, bottom (s. XVI): S 22. In Modena catalogue: xvu. 3 or.

39.] Marc. 639. Parchment, s. XII. 1 + 56 fols. Gatherings of 8. Hand changes at fol. 34Vv. Augustine, Opera: De videndo deo (PL, 33, p. 596), fols. 1r-29v; Civ. dei,

Xxli. 29, fols. 29v-34v; Serm. (PL, 47, p. 1127; 39, pp. 1886, 1695, 2025; 40, pp. 1358 [Serm. 76], 1105; 39, p. 2266 [Serm. 277; inc. Scriptum est (vs. 15); expl. noluisti (p. 2268, vs. 13)]; 40, p. 1358 (Serm. 75); 39, p. 1858; De flagello [inc. Quem enim diligit (Hebr. 12, 6)]; Sermo Iohannis Constantinopolitani [inc. Rogat David]; Aug., PL, 38, p. 1093 [expl. quando, p. 1095, IV, vs. 5]), fols. 34v-56v. On a half sheet bound

between fols. 34 and 35 an early hand wrote: “In nomine domini incipiunt capitula Sermonum sancti augustini numero xx.” A gathering was lost containing the following eleven sermons listed in the

table: “De morte. Increpatio contra eum qui diu iram in pectore , tenet et non vult humiliari (PL, 40, p. 1357). De futura vita cogitandum. De oratione dominica. De carne superba. De quinta feria passionis (PL, 39, p. 20432). De sexta feria (PL, 39, p. 20472). De latrone. De duobus latronibus. De cruce et latrone. De pace (PL, 40, p. 12572).” The gathering has been missing for a long time, for a hand of s. XV (XVI?) marked in the table the folio numbers only of the existing sermons.

Fol. rr, top, erased pressmark, under ultraviolet rays: “Carte Lxv” II

162 CHAPTER IX (or Lxvi), including the lost gathering. No Salutati notes. Flyleaf r: “70. de 13 (eras.) banco xvi (i. r.). ex parte orientis.” Table of contents (s. XV) and “Conventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum.

Ex hereditate docti viri Nicolai Nicoli Florentini.” In Modena catalogue: XVII. I2 or. Augustine, Epist., ed. A. Goldbacher, CSEL, 44 (Vienna, 1904), p- 274; 58 (1923), p. XXXIX.

40.| Marc. 642. Parchment, s. XIII. 1 + 148 + 1 fols. Gatherings of 8; in the last, fols. 5, 6, 7 have been cut out and the flyleaf is 8. Hand changes

at fol. roar. Augustine, Opera: De quant. animae (including retractatio), fols. Ir-31v; De immortalitate animae (including retractatio), fols. 31v-40v; De gratia et libero arbitrio (including retractatio), fols. 41r-62v; De correptione et gratia (including part of retractatio), fols. 62v-81v; Epist. (PL, 42, pp. 1520), fols. 82r-84v; De heresibus, fols. 84v-1o1v; Nestorian and Eutychian heresies (cf. PL, 42, p. 50, n.), fol. rorv, copied by Coluccio; to this he

added: “Inveni istas duas hereses ita post conclusionem huius operis scriptas quas hic addidi quia etiam ipsas in libri principio inter capitula scriptas et numeratas inveni” (the reference is to a manuscript from which he copied the two heresies); Augustine, De sermone domini in monte (PL, 34, p. 1229, but on fol. 147r after possessionis (p. 1302, sect.

71) the next words are: “Remigius pulsat et aperitur vobis. Duo sunt necessaria”; the rest of the sermon consists of paraphrase and abridgment of Augustine [expl. Uva est fervor dilectionis]), fols. to2r-148r. Fol. rr, top, erased pressmark: “322 Carte cxLvul.” Few Salutati notes. Fol. rorv: “Liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis de Florentia.” Flyleaf v: “47. de xvii (i. r.; 17 sscr.) banco, ex parte orientis.” Table of contents (s. XV): “In hoc volumine continentur infrascripti libri Aurelii Augus-

tini, scilicet: Dyalogus ad deumdatum filium suum de qualitate et quantitate anime. Liber de Immortalitate anime. Liber de Gratia et libero arbitrio. Liber de correptione et gratia. Liber de heresibus ad Quodvultdeum. Liber de Sermone domini in monte.” “Hunc librum dedit Cosmas Iohannis de Medicis conventui S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum.” In Modena catalogue: XVIII. 6 or. 41.] Marc. 653. Parchment, s. XII, XIII-XIV. Two separate manuscripts (fols. 1-116, 117-151), bound together by Coluccio and in reverse order at

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 163 St. Mark’s (s. XV); the probable reason for the reversal was to bring the one colored initial to the first folio. 2 + 151 + 2 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-112; of 4, fols. 113-116; of 8, fols. 117-141 (fol. 141 is extra, pasted

in); of r+1+2-+1, fols. 142-146; of 6, fols. 147-151 and flyleaf. Hand changes at fol. 117. Augustine, Homiliae quinquaginta (PL, 39, listed on p. 2132, but in different order), fols. 1r-116r; Iohannes Abrincensis, De officiis eccles. (PL,

147, p. 27), fols. 117r-146v (longer than Migne, end of which on fol. 143V); continuation of same? (inc. In primis a pascha domini usque ad diem), fols. 147r-151v. On fol. 166v (s. XII-XIII) a list of debts for food. Fol. 116r, erased ownership note, under ultraviolet rays: “Liber Colucii Pi (Py?)...de...” Fol. 1171, top, erased pressmark, under ultraviolet rays: “319 Carte cium.” Few Salutati notes. Flyleaf 2v: “88. De xv (i. r.) banco. ex parte orientis.” Table of contents (s. XV-XVI): “In hoc volumine habentur Omelie S. augustini episcopi numero L. Et Quedam Regula clericorum Iohannis abritensis episcopi.” “De hereditate Nicolai de nicolis viri doctissimi et Est Conventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum.” Fol. 1171, top (s. XV in.): “88. In hoc volumine continentur quedam Regula clericorum Iohannis abritensis episcopi et Omelie L diversarum materierum Aurelii Augustini. Conventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum. Ex hereditate Nicolai de Nicolis viri doctissimi.” In Modena catalogue: xvI. 9 or.

42.] Marc. 654. Parchment, s. XIV, written for Salutati. 2 + 70 fols. Gatherings of Io. Quotations about Augustine from Gennadius (continuation of Jerome, De vir. ill.), 39, Cassiodorus, Inst. 22, Augustine, Conf. iv, Victor Vi-

tensis, Hist. Afr. pers. 1. 10-11, etc., fols. 1r-2v; Augustine, Retractationes, . fols. 2v-55v; Possidius, Index librorum Augustini (incomplete; ends bis est expositus, PL, 46, p. 12 mid.), fols. 56r-6or; Tractatus de evangelio Iohannis . . . in codicibus VI (Augustine, Epist.; PL, 33, pp. 63, 61, etc.),

fols. 6or-64v; Life of Jerome (inc. Beatus Ieronimus), fols. 64v-65r; Bede, Hist. eccl. Angl. v.24 (Beda famulus—end), fols. 651-66v; Genealogia ... Mariae (inc. Tres tribus), fols. 66v-67r; Anselm, Hom. 9 (PL, 158, p. 644), fols. 67r-7or.

Fol. ir, top: “Carte txx.” Fol. zor, erased ownership note: “Liber

164 CHAPTER IX Colucii pierii.” No Salutati notes. Fol. zor: “Liber Cosme Iohannis de

Medicis de florentia.” Flyleaf av (s. XV): “Liber Retractationum Aurelii Augustini et quedam alia opuscula. Quem dedit Cosmas Iohannis de Medicis Conventui S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum. 57. de xvui (i. r.) banco. ex parte orientis.” In Modena catalogue: XviI. Io or. See Pl. rx. 2.

43.] Marc. 655. Parchment, s. XII. Two separate manuscripts (fols. 186, 87-119), bound together by or before Coluccio. 119 fols. as numbered (2 + 116 + 1). Gatherings of 8, fols. 3-81 (leaf cut out after 49); of 6, fols. 82-86 (leaf cut out after 86); of 8, fols. 87-110; of 6, fols. 111-116; 1+ 1-1 (last is more recent), fols. 117-119. Hand changes at fols. 85v, 87r, 100r, IOSv, IOOV, ILIr, II12V, I13r, II4v, I16v, I17r, 118r. Augustine, Enchiridion, fols. 3r-85r; Capitula ad Mandatum (inc. Tu mandasti), fol. 85v; blank, fol. 86; Sermo de dedicatione ecclesie (Remigius,

PL, 131, p. 845), fols. 87r-99v; sermon on John, 4. 46, fols. 1oor-104v; Vita Sancti Iuliani (Gregory of Tours, PL, 71, p. 801), fols. rosr-109Vv; prayer (four lines), fol. 1o9v; blank, fol. r1or; Versus de Musis (Baehrens, PLM, iii, p.243), fol. r110v; Epitaph of Roger the Norman (Roger

de Montgomery, or Roger the Great, father of the founder of the monastery of Troarn, on which see below), fol. 1111; Priscian, De fig.

num. (Keil, GL, m, pp. 405, 2-407, 26), fols. 112v-113r; Missa pro defunctis, fol. 113r; blank, fols. 113v-114r; excerpt (inc. Ac tum est autem), fols. 114v-115r; blank, fols. 115v-116r; letter (inc. V. episcopus servus), fol. 116v; Confessio Berengarit, fol. 1171-117v; note about the year 506, fol. 118r; Augustine, Epist. (Cirtensi archidiacono; inc. Gravem inimicum), fol. 118r; blank, fols. 118v-119Vv.

Fol. ro4v (s. XII): “Hic liber scriptus est ad honorem sancti martini Troarni. Qui eum furatus fuerit, anathema sit” (St. Martin of Troarn, near Caen, founded in 1050). Fol. 3r, top: “176 Carte cx.” Few ifany Coluccio notes. Fol. 2v: “215. de xv (i. r.) banco. ex parte orientis.” Table of contents (s. XV): “Continentur in hoc volumine infrascripta opera S. Augustini (del.). Enchiridion S. Augustini (haec supra ras. vocabulorum Tractatus quidam g ...eadem manus scripsit) cuidem laurentio directus exortatorius ad studium sacrarum litterarum. Sermo de dedicatione ecclesie. Omelia quedam super illud: ‘Erat quidam regulus,’ et Vita Sancti Iuliani martyris.” A later hand (s. XVI) added: “Epistola prisciani ad Symacum. Confessio Berengarii et alia.” “Con-

.- ° ; 0 Sng pe , an 3 oop. ° g. oe |oo. “ 7 ayEee ve 7 e. 4 ot feRe 7S 7“ea ~ 59-9:

+ as ea sof é Fe . ‘ & et E g . 3% » chr | z 4h i ian , _ £

ma s rtSS ats £s

ale go : , 2ts \S +.oy . oO fm ~ 2 a we Lo ae a iS &

ESB: LAG an % t & * 3EgoE 38 ond 4 Pay .| a PSdza &€4sES esd >} é , fra a Ys ; . a, ; rs % ; y ¢ , an x S 2 Pe BES poe '

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 165 ventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum. De hereditate Nicolai nicoli Florentini viri doctissimi.” In Modena catalogue: xvn. 9 or. For the Confessio Berengarii see, e.g., P. Jaffé, Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum, I (1865), p. 353. This manuscript gives not only the confession but the following five lines, ending with recesserant.

44.] Marc. 668. Parchment, s. XII. 2 + 112 + 2 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-64; of 4, fols. 65-68; of 12, fols. 69-80; of 8, fols. 81-112. Hand changes at fols. 69r, 97r. Augustine, Contra epist. Parmeniani (with retractatio), fols. 11-651; Gregory, Ammonitiones ad rectores ecclesiae (excerpts from Reg. past., PL,

77, pp- 30 ff.), fols. 6s5r-68v; Augustine, De correptione et gratia, fols.

69r-95v; blank, fol. 96r; John Chrysostom, excerpt (inc. Quod ergo tota septimana), fol. 96v; Gregory, letter to Augustine (MGH Ep n, p- 332 = XI, 56°), fols. 97r-106v; Charlemagne, Epist., xiii (PL, 98, p. 911), fols. 106v-109r; John Chrysostom, De naturis bestiarum (inc. Igitur iacob), fols. rogr-112v. Fol. rr, top, no pressmark visible. Fol. 95v: “Colucii Pieri Liber.” Fol. 112v, at end of last line of text: “Colucius.” No Salutati notes. Flyleaf

2v: “186. de xviu (i. r.) banco. ex parte orientis.” Table of contents, perhaps by Salutati: “Augustini contra epistolam parmeniani, Libri m. De correctione et gratia, Liber 1. Gregorius ad Augustinum episcopum Anglorum de penitentiis assignandis. Epistola Karoli magni de ratione septuagesime quinquagesime et quadragesime.” Below (s. XV): “Conventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum. De hereditate Ni-

colai nicoli viri doctissimi florentini.” In Modena catalogue: xx. I2 or. The Chrysostom item is a version of the Physiologus; cf. G. Heider,

Arch. f. Kunde éster. Geschichts-Quellen, v (1850), p. 552; F. J. Carmody, Physiologus Latinus (Paris, 1939); Speculum, xm (1938), p. 153; Univ. Calif. Publ. Class. Phil., xm (1944), p. 95. 45.] Ashb. 1726 (1650). Parchment, s. XIV. 66 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols.

1-64; of 2, fols. 65-66. “Cicero,” Ad Herennium, with commentary, fols. 1r-66v. Fol. ir, top, erased pressmark which may have been a number (1272) followed by Carte. Fol. 66v, a two-line erasure cannot be made out

166 CHAPTER IX even under ultraviolet rays. The attribution to Salutati’s library is, therefore, a bit doubtful; it is supported by a quotation of Her. 1v, 20 in Epist., m1, p.632: Coluccio’s similiter desinant is based on a pre-Coluccian

marginal note in this manuscript. Bookplate of Le Comte D. Boutourlin (of Florence; “Catal. No. 72.”). Other old numbers (pencil): D. 86. No. 25/8; L. No. 18/40. The annotations are related to but independent of the “Alanus” commentary which originated in France in the twelfth century, as Professor Harry Caplan kindly informs me. 46.] Edili 161. Parchment, s. XIV. 1 -+ 112 fols. (a partial numbering skips the blank fol. 56 and thus reaches 111). Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-56; of 10, fols. 57-66; of 8, fols. 67-90; of 10, fols. 91-100; of 6, fols. 101-106; of 8, fols. 107-112 (and two cut off). Two gatherings (of 6 and 82) missing (containing Epist. 96-120) after fol. 106. Several hands.

Seneca, Opera: Ben., fols. tr-29v; Ira, fols. 30r-45r; Rem. fort., fols. 4§r-46r; De quattuor virtutibus (Martinus Dumiensis; begins Haase, Seneca, m, p. 469), fols. 46r-47r; Proverbia (Publilius Syrus; cf. W. Meyer's edition [Leipzig, 1880], p. 6), fols. 47r-48r; Clem., fols. 49r54v; Epist. ad Paulum (Haase, Sencca, 1, p. 476), fol. 55r-55v; blank, fol. 56; Epitaph (Haase, Seneca, m1, p. 482), fols. §7r; Epist. ad Lucil., 1-87, 89-95, 121-124, 88, fols. §7r-112r. Fol. tr, top: “68 Carte 155.” Fol. 45r: “Liber Colucii pyeri.” Fol. 72r: “Colucii pyerii liber.” Fol. rrar: “Liber Colucii pyeri de salutatis.” Very many Salutati notes. Fol. rr, coat of arms (not Salutati’s). 47.] Fies. 18. Parchment, s. XII. 202 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-176; of 6, fols. 177-182; of 8, fols. 183-198; of 4, fols. 199-202. Hand changes at fol. 153r. Augustine, Enarr. in Psalmos 51-100, fols. 1r-202v. Fol. tr, top: “372 Carte ccu.” Fol. 202v (partly erased): “Liber colucii pyeri cancellarii florentini.” A few Salutati notes, chiefly on fol. 1.

48.] Fies. 164. Parchment. s. XII (fols. 1-156), s. XV (fols. 157-216). 216 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-152; of 4, fols. 153-156. Josephus, Antiq. Iud., fols. 1r-201v; De vetustate Iud., fols. 201v-216v. Fol. rr, top, erased pressmark under ultraviolet rays: “368 (2682) Carte

civ.” Thus the manuscript was incomplete in Salutati’s day, ending at

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 167 Antiq. XVI. 9 (prostravit). Fol. 1r, heading (first hand): “Incipit in primo volumine iosephi hystoriarum antiquitatis iudaice.” Few if any Salutati notes.

49.) Fies. 176. Parchment, s. XII. 1 + 219 fols. Gatherings of 8, fols. 124; of 4, fols. 25-28; of 8, fols. 29-204; of 10, fols. 205-214; of 4 + 1, fols. 215-219. Priscian, Inst., 1-xvi, fols. tr-217r; grammatical notes (s. XIII ex. and Salutati), fol. 217r-219Vv. Fol. 217r, erased ownership note under ultraviolet rays: “Iste liber pris-

ciani est s(er) Coluccii c(on)d(am) pieri coluccii d(e) Stignano not(ar)ii ! que(m) ip(s)e emit i(n) t(er)ra S(ancte) Marie in mo(n)tis a d(omina)(?) p(er)uccia c(on)d(am) (2) s(er) Landi p(er)ucci de d(i)c(t)o loco cu(m) sc(ri)ptis V(ir)gilii lucani (et) poete oratii p(ro) fl(o)r(enis) mm sp(ecie)

MCCCLYV Ind(ictione) vit die xxm Octubr(is).” Sancta Maria in Montis is Santa Maria a Monte, in the Valdarno, in Coluccian territory. Very many Salutati notes. Fol. 219v, erased: “Iste priscianus est domini Iohannis de medicis.”

Flyleaf v (s. XVI): “N. vit. In decimo banco ab oriente.” S. XV: “Prisciani gramatici libri xv. Cosma medicus summus ac prestantissimus vir et divini cultus observantissimus posteaquam pro sua singulari virtute maximis sumptibus hoc monasterium condidit ac canonicis regularibus ea omnia paravit que ad bene vivendum necessaria erant, ne optimorum librorum copia deesset, hunc librum dono dedit ex hereditate iohannis filii sui.” See PI. rv. s0.] S. Croce xvi, sin. 11. Parchment, s. XIV. Written and illuminated in Florence (D’Ancona, Min. Fior., 1, No. 71). 1 + 194 fols. Gatherings of 10, fols. 1-90; of 8, fols. 91-98; of 10, fols. 99-188; of 6, fols. 189-194.

Beginning with fol. 30, the gatherings are numbered from 4 on, though no gathering seems to be lost. A new numbering begins with fol. 108. Hand changes at fol. 193v. Aegidius Colonna, De regimine principum, fols. 1r-97r; blank, fols. 97v-

98v; Cassiodorus, Var., fols. 99r-190v; Innocent II and IV, Epist. (Potthast, Reg. Pont. Rom., n. 4133, 14053, 14038, one unpublished), fols. 190v-193r; Expositio salutationis angelicae, fols. 193v-194r.

Fol. ir, top: “487 Carte ccum” (changed from ccm). It looks as if Coluccio based his numbering on that of the gatherings, indicated

168 CHAPTER IX above. Erasure of ownership note on fol. 97r, of which only part of “Liber” can be made out. Fol. 190r: “Liber Colucii pieri de Salutatis.” Many Salutati notes from fol. 99 on. Flyleaf v: “Iste liber fuit ad usum fratris Sebastiani de bucellis qui pertinet Armario Conventus Sancte Crucis de Florentia ordinis fratrum minorum.” Old S. Croce number: No. $78; see the fifteenth-century catalogue published by C. Mazzi in Rivista delle biblioteche e degli archivi, vin (1897), pp. 16 ff. Cassiodorus: edition by T. Mommsen, MGH, AA, xu (Berlin, 1894), pp. xviii, Ixxi, civ.

§1.] Strozz. 46. Parchment, s. XIV. 62 + 1 fols., probably numbered by Salutati. Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-56; of 4, fols. 57-60; of 4 (with last folio cut off), fols. 61-62 and flyleaf. Verses on the year, months, etc. (Baehrens, PLM 1, p. 205; 1, pp. 206209; IV, pp. 290-291; MGH, P Car Aev, iv, pp. 672, 674, 682, 695), fols. 1r-11v; life of Aratus (inc. Aratus patris), fols. 11v-12v; Germanicus, Aratea, with commentary (printed in Breysig’s edition of 1867, p. 105), fols. r2v-6av. Fol. rr, top: “323 Carte txuu.” Fol. 6ar: “Liber Colucii pyeri de Stig-

nano Cancellarii Florentini.” Through a slip Coluccio first wrote “Cancellarius Florentinus,” no.doubt because that was his habitual signature (see on Vat. Lat. 3972). Festa (in his edition of Petrarch’s Africa, 1926) is led by this to deny the authenticity of the signature and to call the writer an ignoramus. This is quite unwarranted, as are L. Pingaud’s assertions in his edition of the Africa (1872, p. 392) and L. Smith’s misunderstanding of Festa in his edition of Vergerio (Rome, 1934), p. xvi. Many Salutati notes on the commentary. Fol. tr: No. 230, which was deleted and 600 substituted. See Pl. vi. 2. Germanicus, Aratea cum scholiis, ed. A. Breysig (Berlin, 1867), pp. xix,

xxvi, 105; Aratea (without scholia; Leipzig, 1899), p. xiii. R. Sabbadini, Studi it. fil. cl., vit (1899), p. 118. Arati genus was published, from other manuscripts, by A. Breysig (Erfurt program, 1870), and by M. Manitius, Rhein. Mus., uit (1897), p. 329.

§2.] Strozz. 72. Parchment, s. XIII. 47 numbered fols. (1 + 46). Gatherings of 8, fols. 2-25; of 4, fols. 26-29; of 8, fols. 30-45; of 2, fols. 46-47.

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COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 169 Alcidius, unpublished treatise with commentary (inc. Quadam die cum) fols. ar-47v. The name Altividus found in Laur. txxxtv, 24 (s. XV) is due to the use of the word altividus in the text; Alcibidius in Bandini is without authority. Fol. 2r, top: “326 Carte tu.” Perhaps there was another gathering at the end in Coluccio’s time; it would have contained other material, as nothing is missing (the gatherings are numbered) and the work ends | with “Explicit liber Alcidii.” This may have been Alcidis, as the last letter is very faint. Fol. 1r: No. 596, which was deleted and 39 substituted; below this: No. 324. In Modena catalogue: xm. 13 occ.? E. Garin, Studi sul platonismo medievale (Florence, 1958), pp. 89-151.

BIBLIOTECA NAZIONALE CENTRALE

53.] Conv. Soppr. I. 1v. 2. Parchment, s. XIV. Palimpsest. 1 + 38 + 1 fols. Gatherings of 10, fols. 1-10; of 8, fols. 11-18; of 10, fols. 19-28; of 1, fol. 29; of 10, fols. 30-38 and one cut off at end. Various hands: 1. fols. 1r-18v, 29r-36r; 2. fols. ror-28v; 3. fol. 36; 4. (s. XV), fols. 36v-38Vv.

Seneca, Ira, fols. 1r-16v; Ad Polybium de cons., fols. 17r-18v; Vita beata, selections, fols. 19r-21v; Trang. animi, fols. 21v-25v; Brev. vitae, fols. 25v-28v; Clem., fols. 29r-36r; Rem. fort. (incomplete; ends 4. 3 and title 5.1), fol. 36r-36v; two letters of Iacobus Bracelleus to Poggio and one

in reply, fol. 36v (Poggio’s reply in Poggii Epistolae, ed. Thomas de Tonellis, u [Florence, 1859], p. 204); Iacobus Bracelleus, Descriptio orae Ligusticae (Iacobi Bracellei Lucubrationes, Paris, 1520, fol. xlix), fols. 371-3 8v.

Fol. tr, top: “Carte xt.” Fol. 28v, at end of line of text: “Colucii pyeri.” : Fol. 36r: “Liber Colucii pyeri de Salutatis,” followed by hodie and erasure of another name (or perhaps two). No Salutati notes. Flyleaf v: “B. XXVI ex parte occidentis.” “Iste liber est conventus sancti Marci

(huc usque i.r.) de florentia ordinis predicatorum. Quem predicto conventui donavit Nobilis (-ventui-No- i.r.) vir Vespasianus philippi de florentia anno domini MCCCCLXXVIII die x1x Ianuarii.” Table of contents (i. r.): “In hoc volumine continentur infrascripta opuscula Senece, videlicet: Senece De Ira ad Novatum libri tres. Eiusdem ad Paulinum de consolatione. Eiusdem de vita beata. Eiusdem de brevi-

170 CHAPTER IX tate vite. Eiusdem de Clementia ad Neronem. Eiusdem de Remediis

. fortuitorum. Item Descriptio brevis ore ligustice Iacobi braccellei Genuensis.” St. Mark’s number in catalogue of 1768: 283. In Modena catalogue: XXVI. 6 occ. Novati, Epist., 1, p. 148 n., says this manuscript belonged to Giovanni Cambini and after his death passed to Coluccio. He identifies the marginal notes as Cambini’s. At the end of a note on fol. 25r is the name “Io. Cambini.” 54.) Conv. Soppr. I. v. 21. Parchment, s. XIII-XIV, written in England. 1 + 227 fols., wrongly numbered 1-229. Gatherings of 12, fols. 1-227 and

one cut off. Eustratius (Eustrachius), etc., Comm. in Arist. Eth. Nic. i-v, fols. 1r96v; Michael Ephesius, Comm. in Eth. v, fols. 97r-109v; Eustratius, etc., Comm. in Eth. vi-x, fols. 11or-227Vv. Fol. rr, top: “127 Carte ccxxxvum” ; this is an error based either on the

early foliation of 229 through adding an extra x or on a miscount of the gatherings. Fol. 156r: “Liber Colucii pyeri de Salutatis.” Fol. 227v,

erased: “Liber Colucii pierii Cancellarii Florentini.” Many Salutati notes. Flyleaf v: “go. de 9 (i. r.; del. et 12 sscr.) banco. Ex parte occidentis. Eustratius metropolitanus super librum ethycorum aristotelis conventus sancti Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum quem emit cosmas de medicis pro dicto conventu.” St. Mark’s number in catalogue of 1768: 72. In Modena catalogue: Ix. 5 occ. For Grosseteste as translator, sce S.H. Thomson, The Writings of Robert Grosseteste (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 69, 86. The translation has

not been published; the Greek original in “Aspasii in Eth. Nic. Comm.” and “Eustratii et Michaclis et Anonyma in Eth. Nic. Comm.,” ed. G. Heylbut and M. Hayduck (Comm. in Aristotelem Graeca, x1x, XX, Xx. 3; Berlin, 1889, 1892, 1901). Novati, Epist. Iv, p. 37.

§§.] Conv. Soppr. I. v. 25. Parchment, s. XIV. 1 + 36 + 2 fols. Gatherings of 10, including two flyleaves at end and two cut off. (John Peckham), Perspectiva communis (as in Venice edition of 1504), fols. Ir-36r.

Fol. 1r, top: “437 Carte xt” (apparently including the end flyleaves and cut-off folios). Fol. 36r: “Liber Colucii pyeri de salutatis Cancellarii

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY I7I florentini.” No Salutati notes. Stamp on spine reads: “Colucii Salutati perspectiva,” a mistake caused by the ownership note. Flyleaf v: “In bancho xvumt (i. r.; erat Xvit?) ex parte occidentis. Iste liber est conventus sancti marci de florencia ordinis predicatorum quem donavit vir clarissimus cosmus medices prescripto conventui. qui ipsum emit ab heredibus Ser philippi ser ugolini pieruzii. perspectiva communis.” Fol. 36r: “Liber Philippi ser ugolini picruzii notarii florentini.” “Iste liber est conventus sancti Marci de florentia ordinis fratrum predicatorum

quem sibi emit Cosmas de medicis ab heredibus ser phylippi ser ugolini de Vertine.” St. Mark’s number in catalogue of 1768: 203. In Modena catalogue: xXIx. 12 occ. or XIX. 13 occ. (the other of the two is I. v. 26). 56.] Conv. Soppr. I. v.27. Parchment, s. XIII. 2-+ 55 fols. Gatherings of 8, numbered, fols. 1-55 and one cut off. Hand changes at fol. 54v. Seneca, Controv. (in the shortened form called Excerpta), fols. 1r-531; Seneca, Epist. ad Paulum i-viii (incomplete; ends at non laedi), fols. 53v54r; Seneca, Rem. fort. (Haase, Seneca, m1, p. 446, without the additiones),

fols. 54v-5sv; Seneca, Ben., excerpts, fol. 5$v. Fol. rr, top, erased pressmark under ultraviolet rays: “423 (2 doubtful) Carte 2211 (2).” No Salutati notes. Flyleaf 2v: “124. de xxvi (i.r.) banco. ex parte occidentis. Iste liber est conventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum. De hereditate Nicolai de nicolis viri doctissimi et florentini. Declamationes Senece x Rhetorum. Epistole Pauli ad Senecam, et Senece ad Paulum.” St. Mark’s number in catalogue of 1768: 288. In Modena catalogue: XXvI. 3 occ. The manuscript is similar to a Paris manuscript mentioned by Hosius in his edition of De benefictis, p. xii.

57.] Conv. Soppr. I. v1. 8. Parchment, s. XII. 1 + 196 fols. Gatherings } of 8, fols. 1-192; of 4, fols. 193-196. John Chrysostom, In epist. Pauli ad Heb. (tr. Mutianus; PG, 34, p. 13), fols. 1r-196r.

Fol. ir, top: “321 Carte cLxxxxvi.” Fol. 196r (to fill out last line of text): “Liber Colucii pieri C. f.” (deleted). Below this: “Liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis.” No Salutati notes. Flyleaf (s. XVI): “25. de XI (i. r.; erat VII vel XII) banco ex parte orientis. Ponatur in x1 bancho

172 CHAPTER IX orientis (Ponatur — banc — i. 1.). Iste liber est Conventus S. Marci de

florentia ordinis predicatorum. Quem habuit a Cosma de Medicis.” St. Mark’s number in catalogue of 1768: 575. In Modena catalogue: xI. 8 or. 58.] Conv. Soppr. I. vi. 18. Parchment, s. XIV, written for Coluccio. 132 fols. (1 + 130 + 1). Gatherings of 6 (with last cut out), fols. 1-5; of 10, fols. 6-115; of ro (with last cut out), fols. 116-123, 132 (which pairs with 117); of 8, fols. 124-131 (this gathering is placed within the preceding one after fol. 123). Fols. 2-5, 124-131 were added later by the same scribe in a smaller hand. Martinellus (works about St. Martin of Tours): Oratio propria ad S. Martinum, fol. 2r-2v; De nomine S. Martini, fols. 2v-4r; blank, fols. 4v-5v;

Sulpicius Severus, Vita S. Martini, fols. 6r-18r; Sulpicius, Epist. ad Euseb., fols. 18r-19v; Epist. ad Aurel., fols. 19v-21r; Epist. ad Bass.,

fols. 21r-23r; Dial., i-iii, with tables of contents, fols. 23r-53r; iv (Peebles [see below] F, G, K), fol. $3r-53v; Gregory of Tours, De virtutibus S. Martini, fols. 53v-10sv; Ex chron. Gregorii (Hist. Franc., i. 48; Peebles L), fols. 105v-106r; poem on St. Martin, fols. 106r-123v; miracles (inc. Qualiter; Peebles H, I, M), fol. 124r; De cappa S. Martini, etc. (Peebles O, P), fol. 124v; Martinus (Dumiensis), De formula honestae vitae, fols. 124v-127r; Bernard, Sermo de exemplo oboedientiae, fols. 127r-131r; Vita S. Britii, fols. 131r-131v; blank, fol. 132.

Fol. 6r, top: “329 Carte cxx.” The manuscript originally consisted of fols. 6-123 and two flyleaves, totaling 120 fols. Fol. 123v: “Liber Colucii pyeri Cancellarii florentini.” Salutati notes on fols. 6-14. Fol. 131v: “liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis de Florentia.”

Fol. rv: “54. de xxi (i.r.) banco, ex parte orientis (i.r.).” Table of contents (s. XV): “Dyalogus severi de vita s. martini episcopi. Item liber georgii florentii gregorii turonici de virtutibus eiusdem.” “Conventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis predicatorum. habitus a Cosma Tohannis de Medicis florentino.” St. Mark’s number in catalogue of 1768: 521. In Modena catalogue: xx. 9 or. See PI. x. 2. Bernard M. Peebles, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, x (1936), pp. 37, 38, n. 3. For some of the items see Peebles (especially pp- 34-35), and his article in Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of

Edward Kennard Rand (New York, 1938), p. 231, n. 6; H. Omont, Bibl. de P’école des chartes, 42 (1881), p. 160.

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 173 59.] Conv. Soppr. I. v1.29. Parchment, s. XIV. 1+ 142 fols. Gatherings of 10, fols. 1-116 (and four folios cut out at end); of 10, fols. 117-121 (with five cut out); of 10, fols. 122-141; of 1, fol. 142. Quinion missing after fol. 141, as shown by signature. Hand changes at fol. 117r. Ennodius, fols. 1r-116v; Ausonius, Caes., Mon., Tetr., 1-80, fols. 117r118v; blank, fols. 119-121; Ausonius, fols. 122r-142r. Fol. 1r, top: “289 Carte crx.” This number includes nine folios cut out

after fol. 116 and ten lost after fol. 141; perhaps fol. 142 was not in- | cluded. The nine folios after fol. 116 are just about the right number to contain the works that, as editors have observed, must once have been present. Few Salutati notes. Flyleaf v: “83 de 23 (i. r.; del. et 31 sscr.) banco ex parte occidentis.” Then, after an erasure of one line, table of contents, followed by: “Iste liber est conventus sancti Marci de flo-

rentia ordinis predicatorum quem habuit a cosma de medicis.” St. Mark’s number in catalogue of 1768: 524. In Modena catalogue: XXII. 9 occ. See Pl. xvi. 1. Ausonius: edition by C. Schenkl, MGH, AA, v (Berlin, 1883), p. xxi;

R. Peiper (Leipzig, 1886), p. xxi. Ennodius: edition by Guilelmus Hartel (CSEL, v1; Vienna, 1882), p- XX.

60.] Conv. Soppr. I. vu. 50. Parchment, s. XII. 1 + 135 +1 fols. An old foliation: 204-358 (skipping numbers 219, 269-288, using number 305 twice; nothing missing within this portion). Gatherings of 8, fols. 1135 (and one cut off). One or more folios missing at end. Hand changes at fol. 135r. Vitae patram; Antonius (PL, 73, p. 848; Iv, $5), fols. 1r-3r; Arsenius

(ibid., p. 858, etc.; V, 2, 5), fols. 3r-5v; Pastor (ibid., p. 960; V, 15, 30), | fols. 5v-7v; Besarion (ibid., p. 801; m1, 194), fols. 7v-8r; Pemen, etc.

(ibid., p. 805, etc.; m1, 201), fols. 8r-21r; Dicta S. Sincleticensis, etc. | (ibid., p. 909; v, 8, 19), fols. 21r-57v; liber sanctorum patrum (ibid., p. 825; Iv, 15), fols. $7v-81v; Visio Baruntii (cf. Bibl. hag. lat., Suppl., No. 997 b), fols. 81v-86v; Conversio ... vicedomini (cf. Bibl. hag. lat., No. 8121), fols. 87r-92r; Vitae: Paula (Jerome, Ep. 108, PL, 22, p. 878),

fols. g2r-10sv; Pelagia (PL, 73, p. 663), fols. 105v-110v; Maria Aegyptiaca (cf. Bibl. hag. lat., No. 5417), fols. 110v-120r; Marina (PL, 73, p. 691), fols. 120r-121v; unnamed saint (inc. narravit quidam), fols. 121v-123v; Odilia (Anal. Boll., xm [1894], p. 9), fols. 123 v-129Vv;

174 CHAPTER IX Theodora (ibid., p. 1168), fols. 129v-135r; Sermo sapientissimi Grosolani (Chrysolanus; cf. PL, 162, p. 1005) archiepiscopi (A.D. 1102) Mediolensis de capitulo monachorum (inc. Locus iste), fol. 13 51-13 $v.

Fol. 1r, top, faded, under ulraviolet rays: “393 Carte cium.” This would indicate the loss not only of one leaf at the end but of eighteen more, possibly 8 and ro or 8, 8, and 2. This loss would explain the absence of Coluccio’s ownership note. No Salutati notes. Flyleaf v:

“92. de xxxu (i. 1.) banco. ex parte occidentis (i. r.). Iste liber est Conventus S. Marci de Florentia ordinis predicatorum. habitus de hereditate Nicolai de nicolis Florentini.” St. Mark’s number in catalogue of 1768: 391. In Modena catalogue: xxxI. Io occ.? 61.] Conv. Soppr. I. rx. 39. Parchment, s. XII-XIIL. 1 + 40 fols. Gatherings of 12 (?; the leaves are loose), fols. 1-12; of 8 (first 4 cut out), fols. 13-16; of 8, fols. 17-40. Hand changes at 13r, 33r. Apuleius, Asclepius, fols. 1 r-12r; blank, fol. 12v; Ptolemy, Canones (inc. Intellectus climatum poli), fols. 13r-25v; tables (inc. XXV annales),

fols. 26r-32r; blank, fol. 32v; Apuleius, De deo Socr. (including prologue from Flor.) fols. 33r-40v. Fol. rr, top: no pressmark. Fol. gov, erased ownership note under ultraviolet rays: “Liber Colucii pyerii...” Few Salutati notes. Flyleaf v, table of contents (s. XV): “In hoc codice continentur infrascripta: Tractatus mercurii. Canones ptolomei. Apuleius.” Erased ownership

note of St. Mark’s: “...quem habuit a cosma de... niccholai niccholi.” St. Mark’s number in catalogue of 1768: 348. In Modena catalogue: XII. 12. Occ. 62.] Conv. Soppr. I. x. 30. Parchment, s. XIV. 1 + 95 fols. Gatherings of 12 (last folio cut off). Gentilis de Cingulo, Super artem veterem (inc. Opportet enim participare ; commentaries on Porphirius, Isag. in praed. Arist., Aristotle, Categoriae, Peri ermenias), fols. 1r-93v (fol. 16v: ”Explicit sententia cum notabilibus

Porphirii recollecta sub provido viro Magistro Gentili de Cingulo per discipulum suum Guilielmum filium Magistri Bartholomci de Varengnana.”); blank, fols. 94-95. Fol. rr, top: “Carte 95.” Apparently Coluccio corrected the 9 from 5. The writing is not as certainly his as usual, and there is some doubt that

COLUCCIO’S LIBRARY 175 the manuscript belonged to him, as there are no other indications of his ownership. Flyleaf v: “129. de xm (i. r.; 13 sscr.) banco. ex parte occi-

dentis.” Table of contents (s. XV): “Scriptum magistri Gentilis de cingulo super artem veterem.” “Conventus S. Marci de florentia ordinis

predicatorum, habitus a Cosma Iohannis de Medicis.” St. Mark’s number in catalogue of 1768: 109. In Modena catalogue: xIv. 9 Occ.

Gentilis de Cingulo was professor of philosophy at the University of Bologna at the end of the thirteenth century (G. Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, 1v [Rome, 1783], p.184; M. Sarti et M. Fattorini, De claris archigymnasii Bononiensis professoribus, iterum ed. C. Albicinius

et C. Malagola, 1 [Bologna, 1888-96], p. 592). See especially for Gentilis M. Grabmann, in Sitz. Bayer. Akad. Wiss., 1940, Heft 9, where part of the commentary on Peri erm. is printed. A Gugliemo, son of Bar-

tolommeo da Varignana, is mentioned as a Bologna physician and professor under the date 1302 by Tiraboschi, v, p. 223. 63.] Magl. xiv. 49 (Strozzi, 4°, 370). Parchment, s. XII. 84 fols. (numbered 83, with 81 and 81 bis). Gatherings of 8, fols. 1-80; of 4, fols. 81-84. John Chrysostom, De naturis animalium atque avium (inc. Iacob benedicens;

see on Laur. Marc. 668; the name of John Chrysostom as author was added by Salutati), fols. 1r-19Vv; treatise explaining religious practices

(inc. Quare in vigilia pentecostes), fols. 19v-75v; treatise on church vestments (inc. Octo sunt in lege), fols. 76r-79v; on celebration of the mass (inc. Memoratus papa Telesphorus), fols. 80r-81v; Interpretationes LxxH, fols. 81 bis r (82r)-83r (84r). Fol. 11, top, partly erased pressmark: “109 Carte...” Few Salutati notes. Fol. 83r (84r): “Liber Colucii pyerii de stinano (sic) cancellarii floren-

tini.” Fol. rr, old numbers: 494 (deleted); 370; D 49. 64.| Magl. xxix. 199 (Strozzi 1066). Paper, s. XIV (fols. 41-123), s. XVI

(fols. 1-40). 4 + 123 fols. but fols. 1-40 were added in the sixteenth century. Coluccio’s manuscript began on fol. 41 and had 83 fols., with old foliation to 82 because 13 is used twice. Gatherings of 18, fols. 4158; of 1, fol. 59; of 22, fols. 60-81; of 10, fols. 82-91; of 16, fols. 92-123. Hand changes (in older part) at fols. 6or, gov, 93v, 96r, 98r, 106r, 108r, I1Or, I12r, I14r, 118r, 120r, 123r. (Petrus Bessutius, Repetitio in legem reconiuncti I, fols. 1r-14r; Iohannes

176 CHAPTER IX Sotorinus, Repetitio in legem reconiuncti I, recollecta per Sebastianum utriusque iuris scolasticum de Cellensibus de Pistoria, fols. 15r-28r; blank,

fols. 29-30, Conclusio, fols. 31r-39r; blank, fol. 40); Cicero, Part., fols. 41r-49r; blank, fols. 50-59; Cicero, Acad. Priora, fols. 6or-gor; pseudo-Cicero (inc. Epulati fuerunt uno convivio L. Crassus, Q. Catulus, P. Scipio, L. Laelius), fols. gov-gir; blank, 91v-93r; Cicero, Leg., fols. 93v-117v; Cicero, Tim., fols. 117Vv-123r.

Fol. 41r, top, no pressmark. Fol. 123r: “Liber Colucii pyeri de Stignano.” Many Salutati notes. Flyleaf 2, table of contents made for Senatore Carlo di Thomaso Strozzi in 1670. Fol. 41r, No. 118 changed to 1066. See PI. v. 2. E. Garin, in Rinascimento, 1 (1950), p. 99.

BIBLIOTECA RICCARDIANA

65.] 639. Parchment, s. XII-XIII. 87 numbered fols. (+ 2 + 2 modern flyleaves); an early foliation begins with present fol. 4. Gatherings of 4, fols. 1-3 (and one cut off); of 8, fols. 4-75; of 10, fols. 76-85; of 2, fols.

86-87. |

Palladius, table of chapters, fols. 1r-3v; text, fols. 4r-82r, followed without break by similar material (inc. Ducentis hominibus), fols. 82r87r.

Fol. tr, top: “136 Carte txxxvu”; but Coluccio changed 136 to 236. Fol. 87r: “Liber Colucii pyeri colucii de stignano.” No Salutati notes. Fol. 87r: “Liber Cosme Iohannis de Medicis.” Old numbers: L. 11. 32; L. m1. 27. Inventory number: 638.

66.] 1228. Parchment, s. XII (XIII). 59 numbered fols. (+ 2+ 2 modern flyleaves) ; early foliation, in Roman numerals, to fol. 54. Gather-

ings of 1, fol. 1 (i.e., a flyleaf); of 8, fols. 2-40 (and folio cut out after fol. 39); of 10, fols. 41-50; of 4, fols. 51-54; of 6, fols. 55-59 (and folio cut out after fol. 54). Hand changes (s. XIV) at fol. 55.

Macer, De viribus herbarum, table of chapters, fol. tr-iv; text, fols. 2r38v; De ponderibus (Baehrens, PLM, v, p. 71, 1-35), fol. 38v; tables of weights and measures, fols. 38v-39v; blank, fol. gor; table of chapters

(s. XIV) for following work, fols. 4ov-41r; Marbod, De lapidibus (PL, 171, pp. 1777, 1737), fols. 41v-54r; definitions of medicine

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A) ) n firearm eft fanhons acception rs cemitiozs huifi: oe . He Moat quolibecahoTNefert 1qF ge midan EO Pr. XIV. 1. Vat. lat. 3110, fol. 12v. By one of Coluccio’s scribes. See pp. 189, 268. 2. Vat. lat. 2063, fol. 7or. Same scribe. Coluccio’s notes. See pp. 187, 268. 3. Vat. lat. 989, fol. 63v. Same scribe. Coluccio’s notes. See pp. 184, 268.

COLUCCIO’S USE OF HIS BOOKS 253 called venerabilis doctor (De verecundia, p. 304 Garin). Elsewhere he

seems to have been used two or three times without being named.

The absence of citation is certainly significant as showing a lack | of enthusiasm for Thomas. The respectful epithet was perhaps introduced for diplomatic reasons, since he did not wish to offend

the numerous Thomists whom he knew. Vat. lat. 770 (No. 75) contains Thomas’ commentary on Aristotle’s De celo et mundo. THOMAS DE GaRBO. Coluccio says he obtained certain facts from

Thomas’ dictis (Lab. Herc., p. 134, 14). In De nob. (p. 70 Garin) he says Thomas was celebrated for his writings. TIBULLUS. Quoted once. Coluccio’s manuscript is in Milan, Ambr. R 26 sup. (No. 69). Many notes by Coluccio. TREBELLIUS, see SCRIPTORES HISTORIAE AUGUSTAE.

Trivet, Nicotaus. Coluccio does not mention him by name but may have used his commentary on the Aeneid in Lab. Herc.; still he had other sources available. On the other hand, I was unable to find any other source for Lab. Herc., p. 537, 17 except Trivet’s commentary on Boethius. TROGUS, see IUSTINUS.

TUuRRISANUS. Coluccio writes for a copy of this author’s book in Epist., m1, p. 258. In De nob. (p. 70 Garin) he states that Turrisanus wrote a treatise called Plusquam comentum, a commentary on Galen’s Techni.

Ucucio, see HuGUTIO. ULPIANUS, see IUSTINIANUS.

VALERIUS AD RUFINUM, see MAPES.

VALERIUS MaAxIMus. Quoted or paraphrased sixty or more times.

In Epist., 1, p. 10, Coluccio gives him high praise: “cuius sepe- . numero expolitam facundiam sermonisque vim, ornatum, et pondus admirari sum solitus.” He continues to the effect that Valerius is no mere excerptor of history but a teacher of morals, who inclines the reader towards an honorable life, away from vice; he is more useful even than Seneca. Coluccio’s manuscript is Vat. lat. 1928

(No. 84). Many notes and variants in Book 1. The manuscript includes the so-called Book x (added a little later), which Coluccio quotes.

254 CHAPTER X VARAGINE, see [ACOBUS.

Varro. De lingua Latina and De re rustica are quoted a few times. In 1392 Coluccio tried without success to obtain De mensuris orbis

terre and other works from Petrarch’s library (Epist., u, pp. 358, 392, 399).

VeceEtius. Not quoted or mentioned by Coluccio, but his manuscript is in Bologna, Com. A. 146 (No. 1). VERGERIUS, PETRUS PauLus. In 1402 Coluccio received a copy of

De ingenuis moribus (Epist., tv, p. 79; for the date see my Studies, p- 236).

Vercitius. As one of Coluccio’s favorite writers, he is quoted hundreds of times. The epithets are numerous and flattering: optimus or maximus or divinissimus or nobilissimus or excellentissimus or princeps poetarum (or vatum), omnium rerum et scientiarum peritissimus, cunctorum poetarum sine dubitatione divinissimus, incomparabilis vates et Homerus noster, cuius scientia et profunditate nequeo satiari, etc. One

of his earliest accessions was a Virgil, in 1355 (see under No. 49). In 1378 he asked a friend in Bologna to buy a Virgil for him (Epist., 1,

| p- 300). But no manuscript of his has survived. VIBIUS SEQUESTER. Quoted twice. Coluccio’s manuscript is Laur. XXX, 21 (No. 9). VicToR, see PLINIUS (FILIUS).

Victor ViTENSIS, Historia Africanae persecutionis (excerpt), is in

Laur. Marc. 654 (No. 42). Vicrorinus, Marius. The commentary on Cicero’s De inventione is in Vat. lat. 11418 (No. 92). VILLANI, JOHANNES. Coluccio translates into Latin a long section

from the Istorie fiorentine in Epist., tv, pp. 122 ff. VINCENTIUS BELLOVACENSIS. Coluccio has no use for such modern

nonsense as the Speculum historiale. Yet he had to draw on Vincent occasionally.* VIRGILIO, IOHANNES DE, see IOHANNES.

Viratis Bresensis. In Lab. Herc., p. 107, 20, Coluccio seems to draw on the Geta. 1. See my Studies, p. 231; cf. Lab. Herc., p. 238, 113; 409, 4.

COLUCCIO’S USE OF HIS BOOKS 255 Vitruvius. Coluccio quotes from the beginning of De architectura in De nob. (p. 224 Garin). VOPISCUS, see SCRIPTORES HISTORIAE AUGUSTAE.

W ALAERIDUS STRABO, Glossa ordinaria is quoted once in De seculo,

p- 154, 7. XENOPHON. Coluccio usually quotes him at second hand, from Cicero and Macrobius, once confusing him with Kenophanes, but

one quotation from the Anabasis must have been taken at first hand. It occurs in the same passage in which Ptolemy's Geography

is quoted (Lab. Herc., p. 475, 22-25). I suggested (p. 248) that Angeli oo furnished Coluccio with a translation of the Ptolemy passage. He may have done the same for Xenophon. ZONnuS (CIONES) DE Macnate. Called ineptissimus by Coluccio

(Epist., 1, p. 175, 5), probably because of a comment on Lucan I, 168. Among the existing manuscripts of Zonus’ commentary on Lucan are Laur. Lm, 26 and 29. The former has a marginal comment: “Nota de nominatione urbis quid recitat Coluccius contra Luscum: ‘Legimus Evandrum et Arcades . . . vocat et Romulum’” (Inv. in Luscum, p. 25 Moreni). The same hand wrote a similar note in the other manuscript: “Nota contrarium per Colucium in Lus-

cum: “Legimus... Romulum.’” ,

ANONYMA ET MISCELLANEA. These are alphabetized according

to the important word, e.g., if the preposition de is the first word, it is ignored. Acta sanctorum. Florence, Naz. I. vu. 50 (No. 60). De anima tractatus. Vat. lat. 833 (No. 77). Apocalypsis Iohannis glossatus. Laur. x1x, 23 (No. 6).

Apollonii libri compendium. Laur. txv, 35 (No. 16). |

Aristotelis de anima, tractatus et quaestiones super. Vat. lat. 845 (No. 79). Canones. Laur. LXv, 35 (No. 16). Capitula ad Mandatum. Laur. Marc. 655 (No. 43). Carmina, see Versus. Chronica Siciliae. Vat. lat. 3972 (No. 91). Compositio medicinalis. Laur. xu, 27 (No. 4).

256 CHAPTER X Concilium Constantinopolitanum. Epist., 1, p. 237. Concilium Romanum anni DCCXLIUI. Laur. txv, 35 (No. 16). Decalogi expositio. Vat. Pal. lat. 221 (No. 98).

De celebrationibus ecclesiasticis. Florence, Naz. Magl. x1v. 49 (No. 63). Definitiones rerum quae obscurae sunt in libris catholicis. Laur. Marc.

38 (No. 21). Epistula. Laur. Marc. 655 (No. 43). Epitaphium. Laur. Marc. 655 (No. 43).

Excerpta varia, Laur. xu, 23 (No. 3); xx, 54 (No. 7); Lxv, 35 (No. 16); Marc. 655 (No. 43).

| Geneaologia. Laur. xx, 54 (No. 7). Glossae per totum alphabetum. Laur. xx, 54 (No. 7). Grammatica. Laur. Marc. 38 (No. 21); Fies. 176 (No. 49). Interpretationes LXXII interpretum. Florence, Naz. Magl. x1v. 49 (No. 63). Iohannis Apocalypsis expositio. Laur. x1x, 23 (No. 6). De irregularitate tractatus. Laur. xu, 27 (No. 4). Liber diurnus Romanorum pontificum. Epist., i, p. 281. Liber genealogus. Laur. xx, 54 (No. 7).

De litteris. Laur. xx, 54 (No. 7). De logica. Vat. lat. 845 (No. 79). Mandatum, Capitula ad. Laur. Marc. 655 (No. 43). Medicinae definitiones. Florence, Ricc. 1228 (No. 66). De missa celebranda. Florence, Naz. Magl. x1v. 49 (No. 63). Missa pro defunctis. Laur. Marc. 655 (No. 43). Nomina Graeca et Latina. Laur. Marc. 38 (No. 21). Nomina provinciarum. Laur. xxx, 21 (No. 9). De nominibus Gallicis. Laur. xxx, 21 (No. 9). Notitia Galliarum. Laur. xxx, 21 (No. 9). Oratio. Laur. Marc. 655 (No. 43). Parisinae tabulae. Epist., 1, p. 286. De ponderibus. Florence, Ricc. 1228 (No. 66). Psalmos, commentarius in. Laur. Marc. 566 (No. 34). Quaestiones philosophicae. Vat. Pal. lat. 221 (No. 98).

Regum tabula, Laur. xx, 54 (No. 7).

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