The Plutarch An Option Leonardo Bruni's Early Career in History

The Plutarchan Option: Leonardo Bruni's Early Career in History, 1405-1414Author(s): Gary IanzitiSource: I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance, Vol. 8 (1999), pp. 11-35Published by: Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki s.r.l. and Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian RenaissanceStudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4603710 .Accessed: 08/05/2011 05:17

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THE PLUTARCHAN OPTION:

Leonardo Bruni's Early Career in History, 1405-1414

GARY IANZITI

'U I he standard accounts of Leonardo Bruni's involvement in history-writing all have one thing in common: they leap over the

period 1405-1414 as largely irrelevant.1 The bare facts in the case may be stated by way of a prologue. In his Laudatio Florentinae urbis (1404), Bruni announced in no uncertain terms his intention of writing a history of Florence, the city he had presumably come to adopt as his own.2 At the beginning of the following year, however, Bruni left Florence to seek employment in the Roman curia. His subsequent period of service to various Popes was to last for ten years, with only one brief interruption.3 During his decade in the curia

1 The key source is of course H. BARON, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, 2 vols., Princeton, 1955. A revised, one-volume edition of this work appeared in 1966. The impact of the 'Baron thesis', with its emphasis on the Florentine context, can be seen in DONALD J. WILCOX, The Development of Florentine Humanist Historiography in the Fif- teenth Century, Cambridge, Mass., 1969. For an assessment of the current status of Baron's contributions, see J. HANKINS, "The 'Baron thesis' after Forty Years and some Recent Stu- dies of Leonardo Bruni", Journal of the History of Ideas, 56, 1995, pp. 309-338.

2 See the text of the Laudatio as edited by H. BARON, From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni, Chicago, 1968, pp. 254-255: "Possum commemorare munitissima oppida manu capta, innumerabilia pene trophea de finitimis populis ab hac urbe constituta, egregia rei militaris facinora edita ipso populo Florentino exeunte atque armis fruente. Sed non est praesentis temporis tot varias bellorum contentiones tantasque res gestas posse referre; pro- prium illa desiderant opus, et quidem magnum, quod nos, ut spero, aliquando aggrediemur et, quo pacto singula ab hoc populo gesta sunt, litteris memorieque mandabimus". J. HAN- KINS, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols., Leiden, 1990, II, p. 371, dates the Laudatio in late summer 1404.

3 For Bruni's career in the curia, see the introduction to The Humanism of Leonardo Brun', Selected Texts, trans. and intro. G. GRIFFITHS - J. HANKINS - D. ThoMPsON, Bingham- ton, New York, 1987, pp. 25-35, as well as G. GUALDO, "Leonardo Bruni segretario papale (1405-1415)", in P. VITI (ed.), Leonardo Bruni cancelliere della repubblica di Firenze, Florence, 1990, pp. 73-95. The one interruption occurred from late December 1410 to early

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Bruni maintained contact with his Florentine friends, in particular with Niccolo Niccoli. However, as was probably inevitable, Bruni soon began to experience the unraveling of his earlier identification with Florence. An important sign of this change occurs in the frequently cited letter of 23 December 1406, addressed to Niccoli. In this letter Bruni 1) declines Niccoli's invitation to apply for the recently vacated position of chancellor of Florence, 2) states that his place is now with the Roman pontiff, and that he intends to work towards ending the schism that has plagued the Church since 1378, 3) construes his own identity in terms of Aretine (rather than Florentine) ties, 4) refuses to consider revising the Laudatio in the light of the recent Florentine conquest of Pisa, and 5) appears to suggest that Niccoli look elsewhere for someone to author the pre- viously projected history of Florence.4

Another, less frequently cited letter to Niccoli of almost exactly one year later, 17 December 1407, strikes a similar chord.5 Niccoli had just written to Bruni with the suggestion that he use his spare time to translate Thucydides into Latin. Bruni's response is catego- rical: how can Niccoli be so insensitive as to suppose Bruni has time to spare? Has he any idea of the immense labor involved in translating such a massive work? Even if his responsibilities in the curia were to leave him any spare time, Bruni would much prefer to spend it in pursuits of a morally improving kind, rather than in translating Greek history ("... tamen, mallem equidem vel in philosophia vel in alia quapiam facultate, quae me facere meliorem posset, quam in transferendis Graecorum historiis meum studium et diligentiam po- nere"). Bruni is sick and tired of following the cultural directives of others; from now on he will forge his own path ("Satis enim, super-

April 1411, when Bruni briefly served as chancellor of Florence: for the exact dates of this service, see P. VITI, Leonardo Bruni e Firenze, Rome, 1992, pp. 3, 255.

4 LEONARDO BRUNI, Epistolarum libri VIII, ed. LORENZO MEHUS, 2 vols., Florence, 1741, I, pp. 35-36. See the comments on this letter by Baron, op. cit (see note 1), pp. 220-225, 537-538. R. FUBINI, "Osservazioni sugli Historiarum florentini populi libri XII di Leonardo Bruni", Studi di storia medievale e moderna per Ernesto Sestan, 2 vols., Flor- ence, 1980, I, p. 432, offers an alternate reading of the letter regarding point 5. See also HANKINS, Op. cit. (see note 1), p. 323.

5 F. P. Luiso, Studi su l'epistolario di Leonardo Bruni, L. GUALDO ROSA (ed.), Rome, 1980, pp. 39-42, also in LEONARDO BRUNI, Humanistisch-Philosophische Schriften, ed. H. BARON, Leipzig, 1928, pp. 109-112.

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THE PLUTARCHAN OPTION

que satis, ceterorum solatiis hactenus inservivi; nunc sentio in diem magis atque magis me mihi cariorem fieri, nec tam aliorum causa mihi placet vigilare quam mea" ). And the path he has set for himself is stated no less categorically. In Bruni's own words, it involves un- derstanding "the meaning and purpose of life and how it is to be led, the value of virtue, the splendor of justice, the fittingness of honesty, the praiseworthiness of modesty, the glory of courage, and how each of these is to be considered its own reward...".6

What is apparent here is that Bruni, after nearly three years in the curia, has come to distance himself from the specific political commitments that had characterized his earlier years in Florence. Or, perhaps more to the point, the network of concerns that had sustained these commitments has vanished with his relocation in a different environment. In May of 1406 Bruni's mentor Coluccio Salu- tati had died, removing from the scene a father figure in the true sense of the term: a man who had continued to shape the directions of Bruni's work up to that point. The letters to Niccoli show Bruni reveling in an orgy of self-discovery, keen to map out new priorities, secure in his position in the papal curia.

Of great interest in this respect is Bruni's remark that the histories of Thucydides are irrelevant to the sorts of moral and ethical questions he has now placed at the top of his agenda. His dismissal of Thucydides appears to be inclusive of history-writing in general, and reinforces the impression that he had turned his back on an area he had earlier considered eminently worthy of cultivation. Bruni in fact wrote no history as such during his years in the curia. It was only in 1415, upon his return to take up permanent residence in Florence, that he began to work on the Historiarum florentini populi libri XII (hereafter Historiae).7 This is accordingly where most accounts of

6 Luiso op. cit. (see note 5), p. 42: "Itaque quantum mihi detur otii, id totum libentius in eo pono, ut intelligam quo pacto vita nobis instituenda sit et quibus rebus traducenda, quanti virtus existimari debeat, quantus sit iustitiae splendor, quantum honestatis decus, quanta modestiae laus, quanta fortitudinis gloria, quantus ipsorum quae supra dicta sunt in eisdem ipsis sit fructus...". RICCARDO FUBINI offers a penetrating commentary on this passage in his article "Cultura umanistica e tradizione cittadina nella storiografia fiorentina del Quattrocento," Atti e memorie dell'Accademia toscana di scienze e lettere 'La Colombaria', n.s. 42, 1991, pp. 71-74.

7 As testified by the letter to Poggio Bracciolini, 2 January 1416, in Epistolarum libri VIII, I, pp. 110-111; see the comments of Luiso, op. cit. (see note 5), pp. 82-83.

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Bruni's historiography begin their coverage, the consensus being that Bruni's pioneering brand of realistic history-writing required a political subject.

The first point to be made is the following: the hypothesis of the ten-year hiatus, 1405-1414, is impeccable, providing we accept that the Florentine Historiae represent the alpha and omega of Bruni's preoccupation with historiography. Recent scholarship, however, has begun to cast doubt on this latter proposition. It has revealed that Bruni deployed his historiographical activity over a much wider range of fields than has usually been suspected. E. B. Fryde, for example, has called attention to Bruni's interest in biography. In 1980 Fryde published a study of Bruni's Cicero novus, a life of Cicero completed in Florence in 1415 - the very same year during which Bruni began writing the Historiae.8 Fryde's study argued that the Ci- cero novus was characterised by the same sort of critical analysis of source materials that was so striking in the first book of the Histo- riae. Nor did the parallels stop here. In both cases the critical enterprise was sustained by an ideological program: in the Historiae the promotion of the greater glory of Florence; in the Cicero novus praise of the model citizen and man of letters. In addition both works had as their primary aim the revision of standard classical text: Livy in the case of the Historiae; Plutarch's Cicero in the case of the appropriately titled Cicero novus.9 If anything, Bruni is actually more explicit about his intentions vis-a-vis Plutarch: in the preface to the Cicero novus he explains how it was during his labours over his translation of Plutarch's Cicero that he had come to realise its inadequacies and had finally reached the decision to strike out on his own.'0

Fryde's study has not only encouraged scholars to take a broader view of Bruni's engagement with history-writing; it has also singled out Plutarchan biography as one of the key issues. Admittedly bio-

8 "The Beginnings of Italian Humanist Historiography: The New Cicero of Leonardo Bruni", English Historical Review, 95, 1980, pp. 533-552, reprinted in E. B. FRYDE'S, Hu- manism and Renaissance Historiography, London, 1983, pp. 33-53.

9 For Bruni's re-writing of Livy's early history of Rome see now A. M. CABRINI, "Le 'Historiae' del Bruni: Risultati e ipotesi di una ricerca sulle fonti", in P. VITI (ed.), op. cit. (see note 3), pp. 250-258.

10 See the preface to the Cicero novus, in LEONARDO BRUNI, Opere letterarie e politiche, ed. P. VITI, Turin, 1996, pp. 416-418. Viti gives the full text of the work on pp. 413-499.

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graphy did not loom large in Bruni's historiographical production after 1415: the brief Vita Aristotelis appeared in 1430, followed by the even briefer 'parallel lives' of Dante and Petrarch in 1436.11 This is small fare when compared to Bruni's massive output in history proper in the same period: besides the 12 books of Florentine His- toriae, one can list the Commentarii de primo bello punico (1419), the Commentarii rerum graecarum (1439), the De temporibus suis (1440), and the De bello italico adversus Gothos (1441). But while the bal- ance was clearly tipped in favor of history proper after 1415, the Ci- cero novus proves that Plutarchan biography constituted the basis for one of Bruni's first attempts at serious history-writing. Even after 1415 Bruni never abandoned biography altogether, and the best studies of this aspect of his work reveal a persistence of the Plutarchan instance, a feature that is perhaps most obvious in the case of the parallel lives (complete with comparatio) of Dante and Petrarch.'2

The question I wish to explore in the following pages concerns the impact of Plutarch on Bruni's early formation as a historian.'3 During the period of his residence in the curia, from 1405 to 1414, Bruni was almost continuously engaged in translating from one or another of Plutarch's Lives. His letters inform us of his pro- gress. We know that at the end of this period his interest in Plutarch led directly to his first major experiment in historical writing and research. My primary intention in what follows will be to argue that Bruni's translation of Plutarch's Lives can be seen as constituting the core of his interest in history-writing during the period 1405- 1414. If my thesis is correct, Bruni's concern with history did not abate with his absence from Florence, it simply underwent a shift of emphasis. The purpose of my remarks will be to speculate as to how and why it did so, and to assess whether Bruni's Plutarchan studies can tell us anything about a subject on which we currently have precious little information: how Bruni came to define what was to become his own very personal approach to history-writing.

11 For these texts and relevant bibliography see now ibid., pp. 55-56, 501-560. 12 See now L. GUALDo ROSA, "Leonardo Bruni e le sue 'vite parallele' di Dante e Pe-

trarca," Lettere italiane, 47, 1995, pp. 386-401. 13 For some stimulating notes on this subject, which I discovered only after writing

this essay, see G. RESTA, "Leonardo Bruni, Pietro Miani e l'inedita lettera di dedica della traduzione della plutarchiana Vita Pauli Aemilii", Scritti in onore di Salvatore Pugliatti, 5 vols., Milan, 1978, V, pp. 883-887.

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GARY IANZITI

Bruni's Plutarchan project did not of course originate with his move to the curia. Plutarch had long been an author held in high esteem in Florence. Bruni's mentor Coluccio Salutati had sought far and wide to obtain a manuscript of Plutarch from which the Lives might be rendered into Latin. Salutati's famous letter on the value of history as a provider of moral exempla is actually couched in the form of a request for help in finding such a manuscript addressed to Juan Fernandez de Heredia, Master of the Order of Knights Hospitallers.14 Florentine interest in Plutarch was boosted by the arrival in 1397 of Manuel Chrysoloras, the teacher from whom Bruni and others (but not Salutati) were to learn Greek. Plu- tarch was Chrysoloras' favorite author and, not surprisingly, he set his pupils to work translating the Lives. Translation from the Greek to the Latin was indeed one of Chrysoloras' preferred teaching methods. Fragments of passages translated by his pupils are still extant today.15

Out of the school of Chrysoloras came the first Latin versions of Plutarch's Lives based directly on the Greek. These were not by Bru- ni but by his older rival Jacopo Angeli da Scarperia.'6 The latter produced a Brutus in 1400 and a Cicero in the following year. The choice is significant. The Lives provided portraits of greatness, examples of virtue and heroism. But they were also seen by Salutati and his circle in Florence as a vast repository of new and reliable information on the history of the Roman Republic. Interest naturally focussed on the Roman lives of Plutarch, and particularly on those that illustrated the last years of the Republic, a period which had left behind no single authoritative history of the formal, Livian variety.17

14 Salutati's letter is published in the Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, ed. F. NOVATI , 4 vols., Rome, 1891-1911, II, pp. 289-302. For the date of the letter (1393/1394) and other information see R. WITT, "Salutati and Plutarch" in S. BERTELLI - G. RAMAKUS, Essays Pre- sented to Myron P. Gilmore, 2 vols., Florence, 1978, I, pp. 335-346.

15 For one such fragment, see the Epistolario di Pier Paolo Vergerio, ed. L. SMITH, Rome, 1934, pp. 451-452. On Plutarch and the study of Greek in late Trecento/early Quat- trocento Florence, see R. WEISS, Medieval and Humanist Greek: Collected Essays, Padua, 1977, pp. 204-254. On the School of Chrysoloras, see now E. BERTI, "Alla scuola di Ma- nuele Crisolora", Rinascimento, 27, 1987, pp. 3-73.

16 WEISS, op. cit. (see note 15), pp. 255-277, provides information on the life and career of this little-known early humanist (c. 1360-1410 or 1411). In 1405 he was to be Bruni's rival for a position as secretary in the papal curia.

17 The surviving books of Livy, except for the Periochae, or summaries, end with the

16


Bruni's first translation from Plutarch, Mark Antony (1404/ 1405), clearly falls into this category. In his dedicatory letter to Salu- tati, Bruni faithfully repeats the master's own views. Plutarch is of great value because he brings to light the lost deeds of the ancient Romans, the ancestors of the modern Italians. Bruni describes Plu- tarch as "summae auctoritatis homo", and as a historian of the first rank.'8 He announces his intention of translating into Latin all of the extant Lives, a plan which shows him placing his talents at the service of Salutati's scheme of the 1390s.19 The conclusion to be drawn is clear: with the departure of Angeli for the curia, Bruni had inher- ited the task of executing Salutati's master plan for a complete translation of Plutarch's Lives into Latin. This is hardly surprising when we consider how much of Bruni's early literary production was sub- ordinate to the directives of Salutati.20

As it turned out, however, Bruni translated only one more of Plutarch's lives while in Florence. This was the Cato minor, of which Bruni managed to complete only a rough draft. Then, in early

year 167 B. C. Besides the monographs of Saliust and Caesar, the main ancient sources for the first century B. C. are the letters and works of Cicero: see the list provided by D. STOCK- TON, Cicero, A Political Biography, Oxford, 1971, pp. 346-347.

18 BARON, Schriften, op. cit. (see note 5), p. 102: "Nam cum apud Plutarchum, summae auctoritatis hominem, res gestas clarorum virorum legeremus, quos ile praestantissi- mos e Graecis Romanisque delectos in paria et contentiones distribuit, doluimus profecto animadvertentes tantam apud nos scriptorum factam esse iacturam, ut nec facta maiorum nostrorum nec nomina iam eorum teneremus, per quos Italia in universo orbe gloriosissime nominata esset".

19 Ibid.: "...habemus quidem in animo hos omnes Plutarchi viros, si per occupationes nostras licebit, in Latinum convertere et famam ac gloriam summorum virorum reno- vare...". L. BERTALOT, Studien zum italienischen und deutschen Humanismus, ed. P. 0. KRIS- TELLER, 2 vols., Rome, 1975, II, pp. 287-288, notes the existence of a Florentine tradition that sees fragments of a Romulus by Bruni as proof that he began his project at the very beginning. The Romulus fragment, under the title De Romae origine et unde dicta sit, is published as an appendix to E. SANTINI, "Leonardo Bruni Aretino e i suoi Historiarum florentini populi libri XII", Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 22, 1910, pp. 157-158.

20 WEIss, op. cit. (see note 15), p. 251, notes that Bruni acted as Salutati's research assistant in matters involving Greek literature. For an example, see COLUCCIO SALUTATI, De laboribus Herculis, ed. B. L. ULLMAN, 2 vols., Padua, 1951, II, p. 569. Bruni portrayed himself in this capacity in his Dialogi ad Petrum Histrum: see Prosatori latini del Quattro- cento, ed. E. GARIN, Milan, 1952, p. 80, where Salutati is made to remark that Bruni "...quotidie pro nobis labores suscipit e graeco in latinum sermone transferendo....". Among the works translated by Bruni for Salutati were Basil's letter de utilitate studii in libros gen- tilium, and Xenophon's Hiero.

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1405, Bruni, like Angeli before him, moved to Rome, and there began that process of disassociation which we briefly examined at the outset. The effects of the move on Bruni's plans for a history of Flor- ence - a project also inspired by Salutati - have already been de- scribed. But the Plutarchan project did not suffer the same fate. On the contrary, Bruni's enthusiasm for Plutarch continued un- abated. He polished his version of the Cato minor, and also found time to translate the following lives: Sertorius, Pyrrhus, Aemilius Pau- lus, Tiberius and Calus Gracchus, Demosthenes.2"

As is clear from this list, Bruni did not translate pairs of parallel lives.22 His Demosthenes may nevertheless have led him to consider the validity of Jacopo Angeli's Cicero of 1401. Dissatisfied with An- geli's version, Bruni began his own, probably in 1412. By 1415, however - and one notes the date corresponds to his return to Florence - Bruni had decided that Plutarch's Cicero in itself was unsatisfactory. He accordingly took it upon himself to write his own biography of the Roman statesman, a work he came to call the Cicero noVus.23 In his preface Bruni was at pains to point out that the Cicero novus was not to be regarded as a translation of Plutarch, but as a work in its own right. In fact, Bruni's preface reveals the extent to which he

21 The chronology and dating of Bruni's Plutarchan translations is still far from firmly established. BARON, Op. cit. (see note 1), p. 614, places the composition of the Sertorius between October 1408 and January 1409, but without explaining why. He also sets relatively wide parametres for the Pyrrhus, placed between autumn 1408 and March 1412. According to WEISS, Op. cit (see note 15), p. 273, Jacopo Angeli dedicated his own translation of the Marius to Giobbe Resta, secretary to Pope Alexander V (m. 3 May 1410); if - as seems likely - Bruni's Pyrrhus bears any relation to its Plutarchan counterpart, then the Marius could be a clue towards a more precise date. In Schriften, op. cit. (see note 5), pp. 163- 164, BARON dates the Aemilius Paulus before December 1410, but see now G. RESTA, op. cit. (see note 13), pp. 896-897, who dates it prior to 12 August 1409. The Gracchi can be dated to just before February-March 1410, thanks to Bruni's letter to Niccol6 Nic- coli, Epistolae, ed. MEHUS, op. cit. (see note 4), I, p. 89: "Gracchorum vitam legit nunc An- tonius Luscus: cum eam praelegerit, ad te deferetur." The correction of Graecorum (Mehus) to Gracchorum is due to a timely intervention by Luiso, p. 70, who also provides the date of the letter. Finally, the Demosthenes can be dated before 26 December 1412 thanks to a letter mentioning it, written on that day: see BARON, Schriften, op. cit. (see note 5), p. 163.

22 Vespasiano da Bisticci's comment that Bruni attempted a Demetrius (coupled with Mark Antony) is probably meant to flatter the later translator of the Demetrius, Donato Ac- ciaiuoli: see Le Vite, ed. A. GREco, 2 vols., Florence, 1970-1976, II, p. 50.

23 See Bruni's preface to the Cicero novus, op. cit. (see note 10), pp. 416-418, together with the comments of E. B. FRYDE, Op. Cit. (see note 8), pp. 33-53. The date 1412 (Septem- ber) is suggested by Viti in his introduction to the work, p. 413.

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has lost confidence in Plutarch as a reliable guide to ancient history. He was in fact never again to translate from Plutarch's Lives.24

With the sole exceptions of the Mark Antony and the first draft of the Cato minor then, Bruni's activity as a translator of Plutarchan biography is wholly confined to his period in the curia. It is therefore legitimate to ask why Bruni persisted in this task, even long after the death of its instigator Salutati. To answer this question we need only consider the choice of the lives translated: only two are Greeks; the remaining five (six if we were to count the Cicero) are Romans, all of whom lived - like Mark Antony - too late to be included in the por- tions of Livy's histories known to Bruni.25 Bruni's interest in Plu- tarch is part of a larger conception, which stemmed from Salutati and soon became Bruni's own: to recover the unknown or obscure areas of ancient Roman history by drawing on Greek sources.26 That such a plan should be bolstered by Bruni's stay in the curia cannot be suprising, given the antiquarian interests of his colleagues in the humanist-dominated papal secretariat.27

Bruni's commitment to the recovery of Roman history was of course hardly a neutral issue. It was patriotic in a broad, Italian

24 In this respect, Bruni was quite different from his humanist colleague across the Apennines, Guarino Veronese. Guarino continued to admire and to translate Plutarch all his life. In a famous letter to Poggio, June, 1435, he defined Plutarch as "diligentissimus rerum gestarum indagator, cui mira est antiquitatis notitia", Prosatori latini, op. cit. (see note 20), p. 324. This can be compared with Bruni's statement on Plutarch of 1427: see below, note 62.

25 With regard to Aemilius Paulus, one must remember that Books XLI- XLV of Livy were still unknown in Bruni's day. Although Greek, Pyrrhus could be regarded as be- longing to an important chapter of early Roman history: his campaigns against the Romans (280-275 B.C.) were recorded in the lost books of Livy, XII-XIV, as we know from the Periochae.

26 Bruni re-evokes this early commitment in his preface to the translation of Plato's Phaedrus, dedicated to Antonio Loschi (1424), Schriften, op. cit. (see note 5), pp. 125- 126: "...nos tunc adolescentes... omnem mox operam ad id convertimus, ut, quarum rerum inopiam Latini paterentur, eas de Graecorum copia nostris laboribus suppleremus. Quare et historiae aliquot, partim ignoratae penitus, partim obscurae prius, nostra iam pridem opera Latinis claruerunt". HANKINS, op. cit. (see note 2), II, pp. 380-381, correctly remarks that the reference here is to the translations from Plutarch.

27 Besides Loschi himself, these included Poggio Bracciolini. See, for example, Bruni's letter to Niccoli, 1405-1406, as published by BERTALOT, op. cit. (see note 19), II, pp. 415: "Poggius noster Neapolim historiae causa se contulit. Expecto Baias et aquas Puteolanas et quicquid Capua Nola atque Gaieta antiquitatis habent in suo reditu cognoscere".

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sense. Moreover, the idealizing, heroic proportions of Plutarch's portraits were eminently suited to Bruni's purposes. Contemporaries were to be made aware of the great men who had graced the penin- sula in earlier times. The Lives were to act as moving models to in- spire the imitation of exemplary behaviour. When one considers the number of imperatives - cultural, moral, political, historical - satis- fied by a single enterprise, it can hardly be surprising that Plutarch's Lives became a Brunian obsession in this period.

But if one is thereby authorised to speak of a Plutarchan phase of Bruni's career as a historian, it remains true that this area still lies largely unexplored. What I propose to do from this point on is to focus on two of the lives translated by Bruni: Cato minor and Serto- rius. Both of these, I believe, illustrate some of the underlying concerns that led Bruni to Plutarch. Both provide a key to unlocking the deeper implications of Bruni's Plutarchan period. As it happens, too, both the Cato and the Sertorius throw considerable light on Bru- ni's other literary projects of these years.

Bruni's letters provide more information about the Cato minor than about any of his other translations from Plutarch's Lives. We know, for example, that Bruni had completed at least a rough draft of his translation before leaving Florence in March of 1405.28 This version, however, had been carried out in such haste that Bruni had left many of the more difficult passages for later mulling over. A letter to Niccoli of 12 October 1405 indicates that Bruni's first months in the curia had not been conducive to polishing the translation. At this point, however, he is confident he can finish the work quickly and forward it to Niccoli in Florence very soon.29

Niccoli must have been eager to obtain the work, for Bruni returns to the question of the Cato minor in a letter of August 1406.30 Ten months down the track Bruni is clearly at pains to explain why completion has been delayed. The suggestion is that Bruni

28 HANKINS, op. cit. (see note 2), II, p. 374, establishes this fact on the basis of Bruni's letter to Niccoli, August 1406: Epistolarum libri VIII, op. cit. (see note 4), II, pp. 189-190.

29 Luiso, op. cit. (see note 5), p. 12: "Catonis vitam propter has turbationes expolire nondum potui; cito tamen, ut spero, absolvam et ad te mittam". See also Schriften, op. cit. (see note 5), p. 105.

30 HANKINS, op. cit. (see note 2), II, p. 374.

20


stifl needs to check his translation; he lacks the books necessary to do so. To publish the Cato minor in its present state would be sui- cidal for Bruni's reputation as a Hellenist.

Over a year later Bruni clarifies the problem in a letter to Pietro Emiliani, datable in October/November 1407. He has finally obtained another manuscript of the Parallel Lives, but has had the un- pleasant surprise of discovering that it does not contain the Cato minor.3' Bruni is insecure about the reliability of the manuscript from which he has made his translation ("Suspicor enim quasdam fuisse mendas in eo libro, a quo sumpsi..."). He is adamant about not publishing until he has been able to check and polish his work with the aid of a better manuscript. Otherwise his critics will blame him for errors which in fact derive from a faulty original ("...itaque efferre nolui, ne quis libri culpam in meam ruditatem transferret").

The letter to Emiliani thus concludes with a plea that he search his house thoroughly; there might be a Cato lurking somewhere in a dark corner. Perhaps Cato himself is in hiding, horrified by the tenor of the times ("indignatus fortasse more nostrorum temporum"). But Bruni should not joke: Cato's severity is to be feared even though he is dead ("Sed nolo in hac prima epistula tecum iocari, praesertim de Catone, cuius etiam mortui formido censuram").

We do not know whether Emiliani was able to satisfy Bruni's request. Nor do we know the exact date when Bruni was finally able to publish the Cato minor with confidence. If Bruni stuck to his guns, this could not have occurred until he had procured the desired manuscript, resolved doubts and difficulties, and polished his version. At the very earliest then, Bruni may be thought to have published the Cato minor towards the middle of 1408, if not perhaps much later still.

Bruni's difficulties in completing the Cato minor are illuminating in many respects. We catch a glimpse of his working methods: a quick draft, followed by a more deliberate process of revision and correction. We learn, too, how Bruni's departure from Florence - by separating him from his network of fellow humanists - affected

31 Luiso, op. cit. (see note 5), p. 38 (also Schriften, op. cit. [see note 5], p. 108): "Mud vero admiratus sum in Parallelis Plutarchi non esse Catonem, quem magnopere habere cu- piebam, ut eius vitam iampridem a me in latinum conversam, nondum tamen editam, ex- polirem".

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his ability to work with his accustomed thoroughness. Clearly he preferred to check his translations against several manuscripts, a task that proved difficult in the midst of the disruption caused by the itinerant life-style of the curia. All of this, however, would be a mere matter of erudite curiosity were it not that the Cato minor is inti- mately bound up with themes that relate to another major literary project meditated by Bruni in the years 1407-1408: the composition of the so-called Laudatlo Colucii.

We first hear of this project in the aforementioned letter to Nic- coli of 17 December 1407. A certain Philippus has asked Niccoli to approach Bruni with the suggestion that he write a work in praise of the late chancellor Salutati (d. May 1406).32 As with other cultural directives emanating from Florence in this period, however, Bruni's response is distinctly unenthusiastic. He would prefer to be let off the hook, not because he fears the labor involved, but because he finds the material itself somewhat wanting, nor does he have sufficient command of it ("non tam fugiendi laboris causa scribere recu- so, quam quod materia ipsa non satis copiosa videtur ad scribendum, nec mihi ipsi satis nota est"). Apparently unwilling, however, to close too many doors on his Florentine friends, Bruni agrees to set to work on one condition: that Niccoli himself assemble the required information and prepare a rough draft as an outline Bruni can follow ("tu ipse pro me collige res et mihi rescribe, de quibus a nobis putas scribendum"). Niccoli appears to have done so rather quickly, for in a letter to him of 7 January 1408 Bruni reports that he has begun work on the project and that it is progressing well; he ex- presses his full confidence in both the style and the substance: "Lau- dationem Colucii Salutati viri clarissimi scribere incepi; oratio erit lu- culenta et copiosa".33

What sort of work did Bruni plan to write? The title (Bruni in-

32 Luiso, ibid., p. 41 (also Schriften, op. cit. [see note 5], p. 111). For the possible identity of Philippus (Filippo Corsini), and other information regarding the Laudatio Colu- cii, see the important contribution of R. FUBINI, "AII'uscita dalla scolastica medievale: Sa- lutati, Bruni e i Dialogi ad Petrum Histrum", Archivio storico italiano, 150, 1992, pp. 1065-1103, esp. pp. 1093 ff.. See also J. HANKINS, "The Latin Poetry of Leonardo Bruni", Humanistica Lovaniensia, 39, 1990, pp. 9-10.

33 The line quoted here, missing in Epistolarum libri VIII, is supplied by Luiso, op. cit. (see note 5), p. 46.

22


variably refers to the work as the Laudatio Colucii) suggests a pane- gyric along the lines of those that became customary tributes in hon- or of recently deceased humanists.34 Bruni himself clarifies what he initially had in mind in an important letter to Niccoli of 30 March 1408. Again he stresses that the work is proceeding well, or, to use Bruni's term, "satis ... luculente". However, he also reveals he is beginning to entertain serious doubts about the original conception. The plan had been to couch the Laudatio Colucii in the form of a funeral oration based on the ancient Roman model. But Bruni now wonders whether this is such a good idea. Like other genres of writing, the funeral oration has its rules, which must be obeyed. It requires, for example, an emotional tone, which in this case will be entirely fictive since Salutati has been dead for some time. It is also highly restrictive with regard to content and length. Bruni feels, in short, that the original conception imposes too many constraints, and will prevent him from relating much that would deserve to be related ("ut... impediamur multa, quae relatu digna forent, referre"). What is needed is a form which will easily lend itself to the realiza- tion of a lengthier, more detailed and varied narrative.35

Bruni is not explicit about the alternative form he has in mind. But what follows suggests that he had at least considered the possibility of recasting the material sent by Niccoli in the form of a Plu- tarchan biography of Salutati. In order to demonstrate this, it is necessary to reproduce a long passage from the letter, in which Bruni

34 Bruni himself was to be the object of such tributes from Poggio Bracciolini and Giannozzo Manetti: see Epistolarum libri VIII, op. cit. (see note 4), I, pp. LXXXIX-CXXVI. His own Laudatio in funere Othonis, written in Viterbo, 1405 (BARON, op. cit. [see note 1], pp. 535-536) may be taken as representative of the genre: it is published by SANTINI, op. cit. (see note 4), I, pp. 142-145. See in general J. MCMANAMON, Funeral Oratory and the Cultural Ideals of Italian Humanism, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1989.

35 Epistolarum libri VIII, op. cit. (see note 4), I, p. 28: "Quod autem de Colucii lau- datione significari tibi postulas, procedit sane opus satis, ut mihi videtur, luculente. Verum quia institutus sic fuerat sermo, quasi in ipsius viri funere secundum antiquum morem ejus- modi haberi videatur oratio, saepe mecum ambigo, an praestet totam dicendi rationem sic mutare, ut fictionem in re praesertim seria evitemus, nec lachrymis, et lamentationibus ei tempori congruentibus impediamur multa, quae relatu digna forent, referre. Tempori enim, ut nosti, inserviendum est, nec jocunda tristibus satis concinne admisceri possunt. Itaque si rationem dicendi mutavero, videor paulo ampliorem campum ad dicendum habiturus. Nam quod de prolixitate orationis me admones, idem michi quoque placebat sicque insti- tueram".

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ponders (if only to reject) the viability of the Plutarchan option as a vehicle for modern biography.

But I consider it wrong to hide anything from you. I speak as a friend to a friend, that is, as if speaking to tnyself. Whether it is because of the poverty of my subiect or because of my own lack of genius or both at once I do not know, but when I come to weave together the threads of my narrative I suddenly find I lack the warp and the woof. So that now I see that what you so often preach is true: that we modern men are but pygmies. Some of us may have a spark of greatness, but on the whole our lives offer very little scope for the exemplification of glory or renown. Take Marcus Claudius Marcellus: he captured Syracuse, defended Nola, and stopped Hannibal, defeating him in many successful engagements; he was consul five times, and proconsul twice; he killed the leader of Rome's enemies, and hung the spoils of victory on the bier of Jupiter, celebrating a triumph and an ovation. These things make him famous. Take Marcus Porcius Cato: consider his remarks about wanting to run Sulla through with a sword, his military tribuneship, his reform of the public finances, the treasures he brought back from Cyprus, his campaigns for the office of tribune of the people, the rowdy assemblies, his refusal of the consulship, his term as praetor, the civil war, and the way he tore out his own bowels first with his sword and then with his hand. All of these things provided ample material for our Cicero to write about. Or take Agesilaus, who is praised by Xenophon. He is celebrated for being descended from Hercules, for his role as king of Sparta, for his magnificent deeds, for his innumerable tro- phies throughout Asia and Greece, for his girlish modesty and for his chas- tity, which has been commended down through the ages. I can in fact list a practically infinite number of ancients - our own as well as those of Greece - whose great deeds are known far and wide. But as for us moderns, how low we have fallen! What could I possibly report? What could I possibly tell? Of offices held either within the city or without? But the "magnifi- cence" of such offices causes me only pain. Well then, how about relating some great deeds in war? I think a memorable battle was fought at Peccio- li. Could you read about it without laughing? Would I dare write such non- sense if I were in my right mind? No, my friend, there are no more popular assemblies, no more passing of laws, no more decrees. We are left with good character and learning. But even these cannot be praised in sufficient detail unless they give rise to some great deed, extraordinary for the way it illustrates a rare and noble example of generosity, fine feelings, prudence, severity, constancy. Praise is of little consequence if it remains abstract. You must descend to the particulars. And the particulars, if they are to be admirable, must be rare and noble. Like Fabius when he saved Minu-

24


tius who had been surrounded by the enemy. By a single act that great general won three outstanding victories: he conquered himself, he conquered his adversary, and he conquered the enemy. Or how about Marcellus when he showed such humanity and greatness as to lay aside the consular fasces so that he might stand as an equal before his Syracusan accusers in the Sen- ate? Give me this kind of material and I swear by God that I would sooner run out of parchment and ink than I would run out of inspiration. But we modems, what do we possess that is either equal or similar to such deeds? What that is noble or admirable, beyond our studies and our literature? So I shall have to play the latter up to the hilt, and to keep looking around di- ligently, collecting whatever else I can to attain the right amount of detail.36

Let us try to analyze this extraordinary letter. That it is an off- shoot of Bruni's interest in and translation of Plutarch's Lives is, I

36 Epistolarum libri VIII, op. cit. (see note 44), pp. 28-30: "Sed nichil fas esse duco te a me celari: amicus enim ad amicum loquor, id est ipse ad me. Stamina ipsa, et fila nescio ob rei ipsius de qua agitur, vel ingenii, vel utriusque simul paupertatem mirifice me destituunt ad id, quod exorsus fueram, praetextendum, atque ut nunc video, et ut tu clamare plerum- que soles, nos plane hoc tempore homunculi sumus, quibus etsi magnitudo animi non dees- set, materia certe deest ad nominis atque gloriae amplificationem. Marcum Claudium Mar- cellum Siracusae captae, Nola defensa, Hannibal repulsus, et multis secundis proeliis supe- ratus, Consulatus V, Proconsulatus II, caesus dux hostium, et opima Feretro Jovi suspensa spolia, triumphus, et ovatio celebrem reddunt. De Marco Portio Catone Syllae trucidandi consilum, Tribunatus militum, aerarium purgatum, thesauri Cipro devecti, contentiones tri- bunitiae, contiones infestae, repulsa consulatus, praetura urbana, civile belium, et ferro prius, deinde manu impetita viscera latam ad scribendum Ciceroni nostro praestiterunt materiam. Agesilai vero, quem laudat Xenophon, Herculis posteritas, Lacedaemonis imperium, magni- ficae res gestae, innumerabilia per Asiam, Graeciamque trophoea, puellaris verecundia, et probata per omnem aetatem castitas memoratur. Possum infinitos pene referre de nostris ac Graecis illustres viros, quorum latissime sunt res gestae diffusae. Nos autem hodie quam in angusto versamur! Quid enim nunc referam? aut quid dicam? magistratus ne in urbe vel extra urbem gestos? At me quam magnifici hi magistratus sint, valde poenitet. An res bello gestas? Apud Pociole credo memorabilem editam pugnam, aut tu legere poteris absque risu, aut ipse ego, si compos mentis fuero, describere audebo? Contentiones populares nullae sunt, leges perlatae nullae, decreta etiam nulla, mores dumtaxat, et humanitas superest. Ta- men in illis ipsis, nisi aliqua insignia liberalitatis, humanitatis, prudentiae, severitatis, constan- tiae supra consuetudinem egregii ac rari exempli edita facinora extent, satis copiose laudari non possunt. Universi quidem generis laus parum habet momenti, nisi ad singularia descen- dis. Singularia vero, quae admirabilia videri possunt, nisi sint egregia, et rara, velut Fabii sub- ventio pro salute Minutii ab hoste circumventi, quo uno facto summus ille imperator tres maximas victorias consecutus est: vicit enim se ipsum, vicit inimicum, vicit hostem; velut Marcelli humanitas, et magnitudo animi, qui fasces deposuit consulares, ut accusatoribus Si- racusanis apud Senatum conquerentibus par esset. In his atque hujusmodi laudandis prius mehercule charta atque atramentum michi deforet, quam oratio. Nos vero quid simile aut par? Quid egregium aut admirabile praeter studia, et litteras? Itaque me in illis jactabo im- modice, et tamen caetera diligenter perquiram, et colligam, quo prolixitas impleatur".

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think, quite clear, though the point has not - as far as I know - been noticed before.37 The four ancient figures whose exemplary lives Bruni singles out for special mention are all present and accounted for in the surviving corpus of Plutarch. In addition, the details Bruni lists show a striking resemblance to the order and manner of their presentation in the Parallel Lives. The most obvious case of this is, not surprisingly, Cato, whose Plutarchan biography Bruni had translated and was about to publish.38 But no less convincing in this respect are the references to Marcellus39 and Fabius,40 while Agesi- laus"' constitutes a more debatable case.

The presence of Plutarch is proven, however, not only by the ancient figures listed, but also by the observations Bruni offers on the task at hand. These reveal the extent to which Bruni had come to

37 BARON'S last published discussion of the letter can be found in his collected essays: In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, 2 vols., Princeton, 1988, 11, p. 91. Baron notes that what Bruni was planning was "a biography of Salutati". He does not, however, suggest that the biography was meant to be Plutarchan in form. There is equally no mention of Plutarch in Riccardo Fubini's challenging reading of the letter, op. cit. (see note 32), pp. 1093-1095.

38 See Plutarch, Cato, III (Sulla), IX (military tribuneship), XVI-XVIII (reform of the treasury), XXI (tribune of the people), XXXVI-XXXIX (treasures from Cyprus), XLIV (praetor), LXX (death by suicide).

39 Many of the highlights in the career of Marcellus are to be found in the relevant books of Livy's third decade. However, the campaign, victory, and triumph over the Gauls is related in detail only in Plutarch's Marcellus, III-VIII; cfr. Periochae XX. Bruni's knowledge of Plutarch's Marcellus is proven by his use of it as a source for his Commentarii de primo bello punico (1419): see B. REYNOLDS, "Bruni and Perotti Present a Greek Histo- rian", Bibliotheque d'humanisme et Renaissance, 16, 1954, p. 113. Of Plutarchan derivation too is the story of how Marcellus laid aside his consular fasces: Plutarch, Marcellus, XXIII; cfr. Livy, XXVI, 29-32.

40 How Fabius Maximus saved his colleague and rival Minucius is related by Livy, XXII, 28-30, but Plutarch alone, Fabius Maximus, XIII, reports the words of thanks pro- nounced by Minucius: "Dictator, you have on this day won two victories, one over Hanni- bal through your valour, and one over your colleague, through your wisdom and kindness" (trans. B. PERRIN, Loeb ed., London 1916). Bruni appears to have embroidered this statement.

41 Plutarch's Agesilaus is based on the Agesilaus of Xenophon and follows it closely. So closely in fact that the editio princeps of Plutarch's Parallel Lives in Latin translation (Rome, 1470) contains Xenophon's Agesilaus in place of Plutarch's, and subsequent editions continued to do so down to 1530: see V. R. GIUSTINIANI, "Sulle traduzioni latine delle Vite di Plutarco nel Quattrocento", Rinascimento, s. 2, 1, 1961, p. 33. I have thus been un- able to determine whether Bruni's references here are to Plutarch or to Xenophon. Bruni's allusion to an Agesilaus in his letter to Niccoli of 17 September 1408 is inconclusive (Luiso, op. cit. [see note 5], p. 55), although BARON (Schriften, op. cit. [see note 5], pp. 201, 242) leans in a Plutarchan direction.

26


grasp the specific thrust of Plutarchan biography. The ultimate aim is clearly to reveal strength of character. But this is not to be accom- plished through mere appeals to abstract virtues. The qualities of the man to be praised are to be made to emerge from the concrete re- presentation of his deeds.42 In order to attain the required dimension of exemplarity, these deeds must be in themselves outstanding: "rare and noble" to use Bruni's own phrase.

Other signs of Plutarch lurking in Bruni's subtext could be found, for example the reference to "infinitos pene... de nostris ac Graecis illustres viros", which, though admittedly somewhat vague, does offer a paired perspective highly reminiscent of the Parallel Lives. All in all, it seems fair to read the letter in the key we have suggested: as an extended commentary on Plutarchan biography and its adaptability, or rather non-adaptability, to the writing of contemporary lives. But let us return now to Salutati.

There is one feature of our letter which stil needs some explaining: Bruni's failure to mention Plutarch by name, especially curious since he does mention both Cicero, as the biographer of Cato, and Xenophon, as the biographer of Agesilaus. Both were of course among the sources drawn upon by Plutarch. But why would Bruni prefer to name Cicero and Xenophon if his true paragon and exem- plar was in fact Plutarch? The answer lies in the pairs Cicero-Cato and Xenophon-Agesilaus. Both were cases in which a great writer of antiquity (one Latin, one Greek) had taken it upon himself to praise a recently deceased contemporary. Of particular interest is the couple Cicero-Cato, given Bruni's tendency to identify himself with Cicero.43 No doubt he read his own task, the biography of Sa- lutati, through the lens of ancient precedent. Bruni writing on Salu- tati was akin to Cicero on Cato, or might have been, had Salutati been a Cato. For here is the key point of the letter: a great writer, a great man Salutati may have been, but his life offered little in

42 Plutarch's concentration on character is made evident at numerous points throughout the Lives, but, to stay with the example at hand, see Cato, XXIV; XXXVII.

43 Bruni knew of Cicero's lost Cato both through Plutarch and through his reading of Cicero's letters ad Atticum (XII, 5; XIII, 27; XIII, 46). He mentions a Laudatio Catonis in his list of Cicero's works in the Cicero novus (1415): see op. cit. (see note 10), p. 472. The title Laudatio Catonis is Bruni's, and is of course significant in terms of the projected Lau- datio Colucii.

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the way of material to fill a biography in the great tradition of the ancients. Thus Bruni's difficulties in forging ahead with the project, and the cutting remarks with which the letter concludes.

Bruni's letter shows how his encounter with Plutarch injected a new dimension into the controversy over ancients and moderns.44 The Parallel Lives - at this stage still known to only a very few in the West - offered a codified series of portraits which acted as a convincing illustration of ancient greatness. As such they brought grist to the mill of those who, like Bruni and his friend Niccoli, believed in the natural superiority of the ancients. But history too was part of this controversy. For since at least the time of Petrarch, history had come to be valued for its ability to represent, preserve, and transmit examples of human virtue.45 In the letter we have examined, the superiority of the ancients is interpreted by Bruni from the point of view of the prospective writer of contemporary history: that superiority lies in the susceptibility of the deeds of the ancients to lend themselves to embodiment in value-loaded historical narrative. Conversely, the comparative inferiority of contemporary Italy lies in its lack of status as a subject worthy of historical composition. Lack of such status, one might say, comes close to being identified with the notion of modernity itself.46

Further confirmation of the close connections between Plu- tarch, history-writing, and the question of ancients vs moderns comes from another of Plutarch's lives translated by Bruni in these years: Sertorius. The Sertorius is especially notable in that it is one of only two or three of the lives translated by Bruni to contain a preface, in this case addressed to Bruni's friend and colleague in the curia, Antonio Loschi.47 Like Niccoli, and of course

44 The impact of Plutarch on the beginnings of the Querelle seems to have been over- looked: it is not mentioned, for example, by R. BLACK, "Ancients and Moderns in the Re- naissance", Journal of the History of Ideas, 43, 1982, pp. 3-32.

45 B. G. KOHL, "Petrarch's Prefaces to De viris illustribus", History and Theory, 13, 1974, pp. 132-144.

46 See in general D. QUINT, "Humanism and Modernity", Renaissance Quarterly, 38, 1985, pp. 423-445. FUBINI, Ioc. cit. (see note 32), pp. 1097-1099 and passim, reads Bruni's concept of modern inferiority in terms of a polemic against scholasticism.

47 Published in Schriften, op. cit. (see note 5), pp. 123-125. The other prefaces known to me are: 1) that to the Mark Antony, already cited, with dedication to Salutati, and 2) that first announced by G. RESTA, Le epitomi di Plutarco nel Quattrocento, Padua, 1962, p. 29, as

28


Salutati, Loschi had shown intense interest in Bruni's Plutarchan project.48

The preface to Loschi has recently been defined by one scholar as being "of scant interest".49 But with regard to our present discussion it offers numerous insights. First of all it confirms the point that Bruni's work on Plutarch stands at the very heart of his reflections on the controversy over ancients and moderns.50 In fact, the preface to Loschi makes it quite clear that the translation of the Sertorius is meant by Bruni as a contribution to an ongoing debate. Nor is it difficult to guess on which side the weight of the new contribution will fall: the Sertorius is intended to add new fuel to the cause of the ancients. It has even been invested with a particular mission to fulfill. For some have maintained that while the ancients possessed a sort of innate moral superiority, they lacked the cunning, the cynicism, and the duplicity in which the moderns can be said to excel.51 But Bruni will not concede even this point, and with the Sertorius he claims to offer an ancient portrait in which cunning, duplicity, and wily behaviour are abundantly in evidence.52 Sertorius is in fact presented as

a dedication of the Aemilius Paulus to Pietro Emiliani. See now RESTA, Ioc. cit. (see note 13), pp. 880-900.

48 Loschi had expressed the desire to see Bruni's translation of the Mark Antony as early as the summer of 1406: see Bruni's letter to Niccoli, August 1406, as elucidated by Luiso, op. cit. (see note 5), p. 24. Loschi's continuing interest is shown not only by the dedication to him of the Sertorius, but by the fact that by 1410 he had become the first to re- ceive the translations as they were produced; see Bruni's letter to Niccoli, February/March 1410, Epistolarum libri VIII, op. cit. (see note 4), I, p. 89: "Gracchorum vitam legit nunc Antonius Luscus: cum eam praelegerit, ad te deferetur". On Loschi see now G. GUALDO, "Antonio Loschi, segretario apostolico (1406-1436)", Archivio storico italiano, 147, 1989, pp. 749-769.

49 FRYDE, op. cit. (see note 8), p. 38. For a contrary view, see FUBINI, loc. cit. (see note 32), pp. 1095-1099.

50 BARON, op. cit. (see note 37), II, p. 91, notes this point en passant, but does not comment at any length. His remarks are an interesting addition to the original article, in which Plutarch was not mentioned: "The Querelle of the Ancients and the Modems as a Problem for Renaissance Scholarship", Journal of the History of Ideas, 20, 1959, p. 17.

51 Schriften, op. cit. (see note 5), p. 124: "...ad illud tamquam arcem unicam sui erroris confugere solent, ut dicant: antiquos illos prisca quadam bonitate refertos versutia ingenii dolisque et faliaciis, quibus in hoc tempore homines superabundant, caruisse".

52 See Plutarch, Sertorius, I, where Sertorius is placed among the generals who achieved victory through "a mixture of craft and ability". He was, like his counterpart Eu- menes of Cardia "given to wars of stratagem". See also X, where Plutarch writes of Serto- rius that "in all military activities demanding stealth and the power to seize an advantage...

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"praestantissimus et callidissimus dux", while Bruni takes this op- portunity to lash out once again at modern pretensions:

And so therefore, as regards this business of cleverness and intelli- gence, if we want to see things aright, rather than be deceived by our own self-love, we shall perceive quite clearly that neither in war, nor in pol- itics, nor in eloquence, nor in humanistic studies can our times rival the ancients. Unless perhaps there is some one of us comparable or equal to Plato, Aristotle, Carneades, or many others in wisdom and learning; to De- mosthenes and Cicero in eloquence; or to Pericles, Solon, and Cato in pol- itics; or - since we are on the subject of war - to Pyrrhus, or Hannibal, or Fabius Maximus, or Marcellus, or Julius Caesar.53

The preface to the Sertorius is best read, I believe, as a re-affirma- tion of Bruni's long-standing interest in Plutarchan biography. It suggests that the Plutarchan project took on new significance in the light of the lively discussions being pursued by the humanist circles that made up the papal entourage. From the subject of moral reflection it had largely been in the Salutati circle in Florence, Plu- tarchan biography became live ammunition in the controversy that pitted ancients against moderns, and that implicitly questioned the very possibility of writing contemporary history.

Bruni's listing of ancients in the preface to Loschi also deserves some comment. It comes very close, in fact, to providing a rough outline of Bruni's work on Plutarch. By this tine Bruni was surely aware of the impossibility of carrying out the ambitious plan announced in the preface of the Mark Antony (1404/1405), that of translating -all of Plu- tarch's surviving Lives. That plan had in any case been Salutati's more than Bruni's own, and had belonged to a different context altogether. Henceforth Bruni's approach to Plutarch was to be a selective one, and

where speed, deceit, and, if necessary, falsehood are required, he was an expert of the high- est ability" (trans. B. PERRIN, Loeb ed., London 1919).

53 Schriften, op. cit. (see note 5), pp. 124-125: "In hac itaque ingenii et intelligentiae parte, si recte iudicare voluerimus nec nosmetipsos caritate nostri decipere, iam videbimus manifeste: nec in re militari nec in gubernatione rerum publicarum nec in eloquentia nec in studiis bonarum artium tempora nostra antiquis respondere. Nisi forte Platoni aut Aristoteli aut Carneadi aut multis aliis veteribus in sapientia et doctrinis, aut Demostheni et Tullio in eloquentia, aut in gubernatione rerum publicarum Pericli, Soloni, et Catoni, aut in hac ipsa, de qua contendimus, militari arte Pyrrho aut Hannibali aut Fabio Maximo aut M. Marcello aut C. Julio Caesari saecula nostra pares aliquos aut comparandos queunt proferre".

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the preface to Loschi indicates something of a direction. Of the thirteen ancients listed by name, nine belong to the Plutarchan corpus. Of these Bruni had already translated one (Cato), and was either translating or would soon translate two others (Pyrrhus, Demosthenes), while we know that yet another (Cicero) was to be the object of his very special attentions. Nor is it particularly difficult to account for the choice of these four versus the five others. Of the latter, two (Fabius Maximus and Marcellus) are well represented as leading figures in Livy's third decade. Two others (Pericles and Solon) are Greeks, and we have seen that Bruni's preference went to Roman lives. Finally, there is little need to seek an explanation for Bruni's exclusion of Julius Caesar.54

The preface to the Sertorius is therefore important as a manifesto of Bruni's renewed commitment to translating selected lives of Plu- tarch. It also provides further justification for the point made in the letter to Niccoli of 30 March 1408: i.e. that Plutarch's model is not transferable to the writing of modern biography. The end result of Bruni's work on Plutarch seems to have been to reinforce his belief that modern lives - because of their inherent inferiority - offered no scope to the serious biographer.

The whole issue is central to a reading of what is without doubt the most important of Bruni's early works: the Dialogi ad Petrum Histrum. While the chronological questions surrounding this work are likely to remain controversial for some time to come, the the- matic ties that bind it to both the letter of 30 March 1408 and to the Sertorius are clear enough.55 The Dialogi indeed may best be de-

54 Bruni's aversion for Caesar is evident in the Laudatio, p. 247 ("O Cai Caesar, quam plane tua facinora Romam urbem evertere! "), as well as in the Dialogi ad Petrum Paulum Histrum, where even Salutati, author of the De tyranno, is made to cast aspersions: see pp. 261-262 of the text as now edited by S. U. BALDASSARI, Florence, 1994. On the whole question the fundamental source is still BARON, op. cit. (see note 1).

55 These connections have recently been made by FUBINI in his treatment of Bruni's polemic against scholasticism: loc. cit. (see note 32), pp. 1097 and passim. In the same article, Fubini also returns to the vexed question of the date of composition of the Dialogi, proposing that they were not written and released until after the death of Salutati (May 1406), and probably did not appear before late 1407/early 1408. This clashes with the tra- ditional dating, usually set in 1405 or 1406, in any case prior to the death of Salutati. For my purposes it is enough to note that the Dialogi were composed sometime between the summer of 1404 (completion of the Laudatio) and May 1408 ( this terminus ante quem is given by the only letter in which Bruni mentions the Dialogi, a letter dated by Luiso, op. cit [see note 5], p. 48, between February and May 1408).

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scribed as a depiction of the debate over ancients and moderns, with particular reference to the Florentine tradition of viri illustres, in this case the so-called three crowns of modern literature, Dante, Pe- trarch, and Boccaccio. Riccardo Fubini has recently argued that the Dialogi should be seen as a manifesto of Bruni's break with the essentially medieval, late-scholastic culture of late-Trecento/early- Quattrocento Florentine humanism, as represented by Salutati and his circle.56 From the present point of view, however, what is perhaps most striking is the way Salutati's model of a civic, Christian culture had come to invest its capital in the praise of the three crowns and other leading lights of Florence. By the last decade of the Trecento such praise had been codified in Filippo Villani's two books De origine civitatis Florentie et eiusdem famosis civibus, a work revised and upgraded in 1395-1396 under Salutati's direct supervision.57 As the title indicates, the De origine embraced a two- fold theme: the first book rehearsed the legends surrounding the origins of Florence; the second book celebrated the more recent history of the city in the form of biographies of its most famous ci- tizens, including the three crowns and Salutati himself. Biography, in other words, and more especially biographies of modern Florentines, formed one of the central pillars of the cultural paradigm being defended by the older generation grouped around Salutati.

The Dialogi ad Petrum Histrum need most certainly to be read as Fubini suggests, i.e., as Bruni's attempt to settle once and for all his accounts with the older generation. But by this very token it also needs to be recognised that the Dialogi contain an undercurrent of parallel speculation on a closely related issue: the tradition, sanc- tioned by Salutati, of casting contemporary Florentine history in the biographical mode. As Salutati's protege, Bruni had been steeped in Plutarchan lore, no doubt with the idea that he might one day apply the model to contemporary biography. Attempts to get Bruni to write the Laudatio Coluccii were a residue of these earlier plans. But we have seen how, as his passion for Plutarchan biography increased, Bruni's belief in it as a vehicle for modern history declined accordingly. Riccardo Fubini has now advanced the inter-

56 FUBINI, bOc. cit. (see note 32), esp. p. 1098. 57 Ibid., pp. 1079, 1093.

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esting hypothesis that the Dialogi were actually written in place of the never completed Laudatio Coluccii.58 If this is so, then what Bru- ni offered - in response to the demand for modern biography - was something like a reflection on its impossibilty. In this sense the Dia- logi may, I think, be regarded as the logical pendant to Bruni's work on the Plutarchan lives: one chisels out ancient superiority, the other outlines moden inferiority. The Dialogi represent a sustained reflection on what cannot be; they stand in the place of what might have become a modern counterpart to the Plutarchan portraits.

Bruni's preoccupation with Plutarch thus needs to be taken se- riously. It is important both in itself - as an expression of the form assumed by Bruni's approach to history in these crucial years - and for what it can tell us about the wider problem of Bruni's early literary activity. Our investigation has shown that it was Plutarch who guided Bruni's reflections on history-writing during the period of his residence in the curia. These reflections moved on two parallel planes. On the one hand Bruni sought, by translating Plutarch, to make his own contribution to the recovery of Roman antiquity. As such, he participated in a policy that was particularly congenial to the cultural and political aspirations of the Roman curia. On the other hand, however, and in tandem with this erudite operation, Bruni toyed with the idea of applying the Plutarchan model to the writing of contemporary history. This latter part of the equation, of course, was destined to remain a dead letter, thus contributing to the impression of the 'hiatus' in Bruni's historiographical production to which we alluded in the beginning.

In reality, as we have tried to show, the problem of history- writing continued to preoccupy Bruni during his early years in the curia. If our view is correct, then the Cato, the letter to Niccoli of 30 March 1408, and the preface to the Sertorius are all linked, chronologically and thematically, to Bruni's dilemma over what to do about writing contemporary history. The dilemma took the form of a sustained meditation on the non-viability of the biographical mode for contemporary figures.

Bruni's subsequent career in history-writing confirms his sub- stantial rejection of the Plutarchan option and his embracing of

58 Ibid., p. 1098.

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other models. As we noted at the outset, neither the Historiarum florentini populi libri XII, nor his other major histories were to be set in the form of biography.59 Bruni's return to Florence in 1415 saw him bring his earlier fascination with Plutarch to an abrupt end: the Cicero novus was to some extent a biography in the Plu- tarchan manner, but it also contained severe criticism of Plutarch's own life of Cicero. In addition, while it celebrated the exemplary deeds of an ancient hero, the Cicero novus also bristled with implicit disclaimers as to the applicability of the biographical paradigm to modern figures, the latter seen as pitiful by comparison to their ancient courfterparts.60 The year 1415 both marks the conclusion of Bruni's Plutarchan period and offers the key to his future production. With the composition of the Cicero novus Bruni said farewell to an earlier passion; with the composition of the first book of the Historiae he began to explore the possibilities of a different mode of history-writing, one he had no doubt been pondering for some time as the best alternative to biography. The models here were to be Livy and Thucydides. The accent was to fall not on the individual but on the collectivity; not on the man but on his times.61 Such a program was in keeping with the evolution of Bruni's ideas as we have seen them unfold in the foregoing pages.

All of which of course does not mean that Bruni lost interest in Plutarch altogether after 1415. It is true that what had earlier been a potential historiographical model at times became an object of indif- ference, and even criticism.62 The translations, however, remained

59 The Vita Aristotelis (1430) is an exception to the rule: see the text as now edited by PAOLO VITI, op. cit. (see note 10), pp. 502-529. For a recent discussion see E. FRYDE, "The First Humanistic Life of Aristotle: the 'Vita Aristotelis' of Leonardo Bruni", in P. DENLEY -

C. ELAM, (eds.), Florence and Italy: Renaissance Studies in Honour of Nicolai Rubinstein, London, 1988, pp. 285-296.

60 See the exclamations that interrupt Bruni's narrative at several points, in op. cit (see note 59), pp. 422-424 ("At nostre etatis homines si semel libellos legerint, si iterum ac rur- sus pulpitum ascenderint, oratoriam facultatem se possidere arbitrantur"), and p. 486 ("O seculum doctorum hominum! At nunc vix est qui prima elementa proferre sciat, vix est qui curet").

61 On this point see RESTA, Ioc. cit. (see note 13), pp. 884-886, who also emphasizes the inadequacy of Plutarch as a model for Bruni's historiography after his return to Florence.

62 See for example Bruni's Argumentum in epistolas Platonis (1427), in Schriften, op. cit. (see note 5), p. 137: "Plutarchus vero, qui vitam Dionis scribit, in multis aberrat nec

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canonical,63 and we can detect signs of the Plutarchan presence even where we might least expect to find them.64 Moreover, a semblance of the earlier enthusiasm appeared late in Bruni's career with the publication of the lives of Dante and Petrarch (1436). It is certainly no accident that these 'parallel lives' were written shortly after the republication in 1434 of the Laudatio Florentinae urbis,65 a work which had significantly failed to mention the three crowns.66 The Plutarchan lives of Dante and Petrarch both made amends for this earlier omission, and betokened the survival, in a minor key at least, of a fundamental moment in Bruni's formation as a writer of history.

satis accurate hanc historiam legisse videtur". This may be compared with Guarino's remark, quoted in note 24 above.

63 They are mentioned by Bruni in a letter of 1441 to Niccol6 Ceva, Epistolarum libri VIII, op. cit. (see note 4), p. 148, and are duly listed among Bruni's works in the funeral oration by Poggio, p. cxxiii, as well as in the life written by VESPASIANO DA BISTICCI, Le vite, op. cit. (see note 22), I, pp. 483-484.

64 See for example Book IV of Bruni's Historiae (1421), ed. E. SANTINI, Rerum itali- carum scriptores, new ed., XIX, 3, Citta di Castello, 1914, p. 77, II, 25-41. The passage re- lates how news of the victory at Campaldino (1289) miraculously reached Florence at the very same hour at which the issue of the battle was being decided. Bruni was following Gio- vanni Villani, VIII, pp. cxxxi: see now Nuova cronica, ed. G. PORTA, Parma, 1990, 1, pp. 602-603, 11, pp. 141-156. It has not to my knowledge been noticed, however, that Bruni's reworking of the tale is based on Plutarch, Aemilius Paulus, chapters XXIV and XXV in modern editions. Comparison with Bruni's translation of the Aemilius Paulus confirms what might have been suspected, i.e., that Bruni used his own translation as the basis for the passage as presented in the Historiae: see Vitae ... Plutarchi, Basle, 1531, pp. 157-158. I present a fuller account in a forthcoming study of Bruni's Historiae.

65 On the republication of the Laudatio, and its connections with Bruni's official ef- forts to have the Council of the Church convene in Florence, see now P. VITI, Leonardo Bruni e Firenze, op. cit. (see note 3), pp. 137-196.

66 The omission was significant in the light of Salutati's Invectiva in Antonium Lus- chum Vicentinum (1403) which Bruni's Laudatio was supposed to complement. Salutati's Invectiva ends in a crescendo of praise for the three crowns: see Prosatori latini, op. cit. (see note 20), p. 34. As for Bruni, he was already beginning to distance himself from this tradition in a passage which deserves to be quoted: "...maximeque illud meminerint me non privatim de singulorum civium virtute aut praestantia loqui, sed de universa re publica" (Laudatio Florentinae urbis, op. cit. [see note 54], p. 250).

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Documents

The Plutarch An Option Leonardo Bruni's Early Career in History