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20 April 2020
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-020-00564-1
Notes
R. Black, ‘The New Laws of History’, Renaissance Studies, 1.1, 1987, pp. 125–56; M. Regoliosi, ‘Riflessioni umanistiche sullo “scrivere storia”’, Rinascimento, 31, 1991, pp. 3–37; C. Vasoli, ‘Il modello teorico’, in La storiografia umanistica. Convegno internazionale di studi (Messina, 22–25 Ottobre 1987), ed. A. Di Stefano et al., I, Messina, 1992, pp. 5–38. For the earlier bibliography, see G. Cotroneo, I trattatisti dell’“ars historica”, Naples, 1971, and Theoretiker humanistischer Geschichtsshreibung, ed. E. Kessler, Munich, 1971, which were fundamental in giving a boost to studies in historiographical theory in recent decades. A. Grafton, What was history? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, 2007, and G. Ianziti, Writing History in Renaissance Italy. Leonardo Bruni and the Uses of the Past, Cambridge MA, 2012, are important contributions to the field. Another very welcome work is the critical edition of Giovanni Pontano, Actius: de numeris poeticis, de lege historiae, ed. and transl. F. Tateo, Rome, 2018, a dialogue written around the same time as the two pieces we examine in this article.
Calderini’s brief considerations on history, which he wrote on an incunabulum of Suetonius, have been analysed by P. Pellegrini, ‘Studiare Svetonio a Padova alla fine del Quattrocento’, Incontri triestini di filologia classica, 7, 2007–8, pp. 53–64.
M. De Nichilo, ‘Scrivere la storia. Una lettera di Bernardo Rucellai a Roberto Acciaiuoli’, in Il principe e la storia: atti del convegno scandiano 18-20 settembre 2003, ed. T. Matarrese and C. Montagnani, Novara, 2005, pp. 369–96, has studied Rucellai’s letter to Roberto Acciaiuoli (briefly mentioned by Black, ‘New Laws’ [n. 1 above]); and Bernardo Rucellai, De bello Italico. La guerra d’Italia, ed. and transl. D. Coppini, Florence, 2011, contains a short but interesting prologue of historiographical content.
Fonzio’s Oratio in historiae laudationem has been thoroughly examined by C. Bianca, ‘Bartolomeo Fonzio tra filologia e storia’, Medioevo e Rinascimento, 18, 2004, pp. 207–40, who updates and complements C. Trinkaus, ‘A Humanist Image of Humanism: The Inaugural Orations of Bartolomeo della Fonte’, Studies in the Renaissance, 7, 1960, pp. 90–147.
Codro, Beroaldo and Bocchi have been considered in B. Stasi, ‘Il teologo, il retore e lo storico: osservazioni in margine ad alcune teorie storiografiche dell’Umanesimo bolognese’, Critica letteraria, 29, 2001, pp. 115–37, who offers a general view of humanist historiographical theories in Bologna.
See V. Pineda, ‘Un capítulo de historiografía humanista: los veinte preceptos para el arte de la historia de Jodocus Badius Ascensius’, in La escondida senda. Estudios en homenaje a Alberto Blecua, ed. E. Fosalba and G. Pontón, Barcelona, 2012, pp. 85–120, for an edition, translation and commentary of Jodocus Badius Ascensius’s ‘De historia et eam concernentibus’.
All of these are commented on in E. Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance, Chicago, 1981.
Black, ‘New Laws’ (n. 1 above), p. 126.
Ianziti, Writing History (n. 1 above), esp. chap. 1: ‘Bruni on Writing History’.
Black, ‘New Laws’ (n. 1 above).
B. Stasi, Apologie umanistiche della “historia”, Bologna, 2004, p. 8.
But see R. Fubini, Storiografia dell’umanesimo in Italia, da Leonardo Bruni ad Annio da Viterbo, Rome, 2003, pp. 351–2, for a consideration of Valla’s interest in history.
The studies collected in Giorgio Valla tra scienza e sapienza, ed. V. Branca, Florence, 1981, give an account of several of these scientific areas; for updated interpretations, see R. Tucci, ‘Giorgio Valla e il libri matematici del “De expetendis et fugiendis rebus”: contenuto, fonti, fortuna’, PhD dissertation, Università di Pisa, 2008, and A. A. Raschieri, ‘Giorgio Valla: Editor and Translator of Ancient Scientific Texts’, in Greek Science in the Long Run: Essays on the Greek Scientific Tradition (4th c. BCE–17th c. CE), ed. L. Olmos, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2012, pp. 127–49. For the arts of discourse, see C. Vasoli, ‘Note su Giorgio Valla e il suo “sistema” delle “arti del discorso”’, Interpres, 4, 1982, pp. 247–61.
See S. Fabrizio-Costa and F. La Brasca, Filippo Beroaldo l’Ancien: un passeur d’humanités – Filippo Beroaldo il Vecchio: un umanista “ad limina”, Berne, 200, p. 137. For Beroaldo’s academic activity and the fortuna of his orationes, see A. Severi, Filippo Beroaldo il Vecchio, un maestro per l’Europa: da commentatore di classici a classico moderno (1481–1550), Bologna, 2015. Stasi, Apologie umanistiche (n. 11 above), pp. 205–17, has studied the relationship between history and rhetoric in the context of Beroaldo’s commentaries on ancient historians (Sallust, Livy, Silius Italicus and Suetonius).
Fabrizio-Costa and La Brasca, Filippo Beroaldo l’Ancien (n. 14 above), p. 138.
Stasi, Apologie umanistiche (n. 11 above), pp. 211-12.
The actual commentary has not survived, although we do know that Beroaldo ‘interpreted Livy and Silius Italicus during at least one academic year between 1472 and 1475 or between 1479 and 1491’: E. L. Bassett, J. Delz and A. J. Dunston, ‘Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius Asconius’, in Catalogus translationum et commentariorum, ed. F. E. Kranz and P. O. Kristeller, III, Washington DC, 1976, pp. 341–98 (352).
On this MS, see G. Billanovich, La tradizione del testo di Livio e le origini dell’umanesimo, II: Il Livio del Petrarca e del Valla, Padua, 1981.
A. H. McDonald, ‘Livius’, in Catalogus translationum et commentariorum, ed. P. O. Kristeller and F. E. Kranz, eds., II, Washington DC, 1971, pp. 331–48 (335).
Bassett, Delz and Dunston, , ‘Silius Italicus’ (n. 17 above), p. 349.
Ibid., pp. 351–2; see also F. Muecke, ‘Silius Italicus in the Italian Renaissance’, in Brill’s Companion to Silius Italicus, ed. A. Augustakis, Leiden: Brill, 2009, pp. 399–424.
McDonald, ‘Livius’ (n. 19 above), p. 337; Bassett, Delz and Dunston, ‘Silius Italicus’ (n. 17 above), pp. 353–5.
One of the most important names in earlier historiographical theory is Lapo da Castiglionchio the Younger, who wrote a letter addressed to Flavio Biondo in 1437, in which he discoursed upon the value of history in the style of a ‘Ciceronian cento’: see M. Miglio, ‘Una lettera di Lapo da Castiglionchio in Giovane a Flavio Biondo: storia e storiografia nel Quattrocento’, Humanistica Lovaniensia, 23, 1974, pp. 1–30; but he did not do so in the form of a proem or prolusio to a specific historian. For the text and a comment of Lapo’s letter, see M. Regoliosi, ‘“Res gestae patriae” e “res gestae ex universa Italia”: La lettera di Lapo da Castiglionchio a Biondo Flavio’, in La memoria e la città. Scritture storiche tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna, ed. C. Bastia and M. Bolognani, Bologna, 1995, pp. 273–305.
R. Zaccaria, ‘Della Fonte, Bartolomeo’, Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, XXXVI, Rome, 1988 < http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/bartolomeo-della-fonte_(Dizionario-Biografico)/>. Date accessed: 12 April 2019.
V. Fera, Una ignota “Expositio Suetoni” del Poliziano, Messina, 1983.
G. Brugnoli, ‘La Praefatio in Suetonium del Poliziano’, in id., Studi suetoniani, Lecce, 1968, pp. 185–203.
We cite the original text from the edition by M. Pade, The Reception of Plutarch’s Lives in Fifteenth-Century Italy, 2 vols, Copenhagen, 2007, II, p. 81; see this work also for the reception of Plutarch in humanism. In general, for proems of historical works in the Renaissance, see J. Villalba Álvarez, Los proemios en la historiografía latina renacentista, Madrid, 2009.
Pade, Reception of Plutarch’s Lives (n. 27 above), II, p. 81.The source of the anecdote is Plutarch’s Sayings of Kings and Commanders, 189. Mention of Demetrius is also to be found in the oration cited by Piccolomini: ‘Qua re illud Demetrii Phaleri praeceptum semper magnificum ac praeclarum putavi, quo vir sapentissimus Ptolomaeum, regem Aegyptiarum, admonuit, ut quam creberrime libros legeret et nunquam, quoad posset, ex manibus dimitteret’: M. von Cotta-Schönberg. Final edition, 1st version (Orations of Enea Silvio Piccolomini / Pope Pius II; 8), 2018, 49, paragraph 21 <hal-01345032>. Date accessed: 14 November 2018.
Von Cotta-Schönberg, Orations of Enea Silvio Piccolomini (n. 28 above), 28, paragraph 7. It is likely that Barbaro’s text was, directly or indirectly, although separately, the source for both Piccolomini and Beroaldo.
Regoliosi, ‘“Res gestae patriae”’ (n. 23 above).
M. Crab and J. De Keyser, ‘Il commento di Guarino a Valerio Massimo’, Aevum, 87.3, 2013, pp. 667–84 (669).
Stasi, ‘Il teologo’ (n. 5 above); Antonio Codro, Sermones I–IV: filologia e maschera nel Quattrocento, ed. L. Chines and A. Severi, Rome, 2003.
F. Petrucci, ‘Corio, Bernardino’, Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, XXIX, Rome, 1988, <http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/bernardino-corio_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/>. Date accessed: 7 July 2019. For the text of the preface – one of the first reflections on historiography written in the vernacular – together with an English translation, see the Appendix below.
Regoliosi, ‘Riflessioni umanistiche’ (n. 1 above), pp. 6–7.
Cicero, Orator, 120: ‘Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.’
Cicero, De oratore, II.36: ‘Historia vero testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuntia vetustatis.’
Qunitilian, Institutio oratoria, X.1: ‘Historia quoque alere oratorem quodam uberi iucundoque suco potest.’
Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, I.1.4.: ‘καλὸν γὰρ τὸ δύνασθαι τοῖς τῶν ἄλλων ἀγνοήμασι πρὸς διόρθωσιν χρῆσθαι παραδείγμασι, καὶ πρὸς τὰ συγκυροῦντα ποικίλως κατὰ τὸν βίον ἔχειν μὴ ζήτησιν τῶν πραττομένων, ἀλλὰ μίμησιν τῶν ἐπιτετευγμένων’.
As stated above, the anecdote is to be found in Plutarch’s Sayings of Kings and Commanders, 189: ‘Δημέτριος ὁ Φαληρεὺς Πτολεμαίῳ τῷ βασιλεῖ παρῄνει τὰ περὶ βασιλείας καὶ ἡγεμονίας βιβλία κτᾶσθαι καὶ ἀναγινώσκειν· “ἅ γὰρ οἱ φίλοι τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν οὐ θαρροῦσι παραινεῖν, ταῦτα ἐν τοῖς βιβλίοις γέγραπται.”’
Vitruvius, De architectura, V, praef.: ‘historiae per se tenent lectores; habent enim novarum rerum varias expectationes’.
Juvenal, X.174–5: ‘velificatus Athos et quidquid Graecia mendax / audet in historia’.
See Pliny the Elder, Historia naturalis, XXV.4: ‘primusque et diu solus idem ille M. Cato, omnium bonarum artium magister’.
The passage recalls Cicero’s celebrated text (De oratore, II.52): ‘Res omnes singulorum annorum mandabat litteris pontifex maximus, referebatque in album, et proponebat tabulam domi, postestas ut esset populo cognoscendi, hique etiam nunc Annales Maximi nominatur. Hanc similitudinem scribendi multi secuti sunt, qui sine ullis ornamentis monumenta solum temporum, hominum, locorum gestarumque rerum reliquerunt; itaque qualis apud Graecos Pherecydes, Hellanicus, Acusilas fuit aliique permulti, talis noster Cato et Pictor et Piso.’
Cicero, De oratore, II.62: ‘Nam quis nescit primam esse historiae legem, ne quid falsi dicere audeat?’
Polybius, I.14.6: ‘ὥσπερ γὰρ ζῴου τῶν ὄψεων ἀφαιρεθεισῶν ἀχρειοῦται τὸ ὅλον, οὕτως ἐξ ἱστορίας ἀναιρεθείσης τῆς ἀληθείας τὸ καταλειπόμενον αὐτῆς ἀνωφελὲς γίνεται διήγημα.’
tamtummodo corr
Cicero, De oratore, II.54: ‘Ceteri non exornatores rerum, sed tantum modo narratores fuerunt.’ An allusion to the famous passage in which Cicero refers to the ancient annalists, who devoted themselves to simply recording in writing events that happened, without any pretensions to literariness.
Qunitilian, Institutio oratoria, X.1.32: ‘neque illa Livi lactea ubertas satis docebit eum qui non speciem expositionis sed fidem quaerit’. Quintilian compares Livy’s style with the richness of flowing milk.
grandiloqus corr
Martial, II.77.7: ‘Non sunt longa quibus nihil est quod demere possis.’
Jerome, Epistulae, 53: ‘Ad Titum Livium, lacteo eloquentiae fonte manantem, de ultimis Hispaniae Gallorumque finibus quosdam venisse nobiles legimus, et quos ad contemplationem sui Roma non traxerat, unius hominis fama perduxit.’
Pliny the Younger, Epistulae, II.3: ‘Numquamne legisti, Gaditanum quendam Titi Livi nomine gloriaque commotum ad visendum eum ab ultimo terrarum orbe venisse, statimque ut viderat abisse?’ Indeed, Pliny remembers a certain man from Gades (Cádiz) who went to Rome simply to see Livy and then returned to his own country.
solicitarentur corr
quottidie corr
Jerome, Epistulae, 80: ‘Inter quos etiam frater et collega noster ab Episcopo Damaso deprecatus, cum Homilias duas de Cantico Canticorum in Latinum transtulisset ex Graeco, ita in illo opere ornate magnificeque praefatus est, ut cuivis legendi Origenem, et avidissime perquirendi desiderium commoveret, dicens illius animae convenire quod dictum est: “Introduxit me rex in cubiculum suum”; asserens quod cum in caeteris libris omnes vincat, in Canticis Canticorum etiam ipse se vicerit.’
Pliny the Elder, Historia naturalis, XXXVI.20: ‘Praxitelis aetatem inter statuarios diximus, qui marmoris gloria superavit etiam semet.’
summo corr
Jerome, Epistulae, 48: ‘Paulum Apostolum proferam, quem quotiescumque lego, videor mihi non verba audire sed tonitrua … . Videntur quidem verba simplicia et quasi innocentis hominis et rusticani, et qui nec facere, nec declinare noverit insidias; sed quocumque respexeris, fulmina sunt.’
formidosos corr
comspiciuntur corr
profeto corr
Seneca, Epistulae, 100.9: ‘Scripsit enim et dialogos, quos non magis philosophiae adnumerare possis quam historiae, et ex professo philosophiam continentis libros.’
querellae corr
Oratianum corr
Horace, Carmina, II.1.21–4: ‘Audire magnos iam videor duces / non indecoro pulvere sordidos / et cuncta terrarum subacta / praeter atrocem animum Catonis.’
errectus corr
Martial, VII.63.5–6: ‘Sacra cothurnati non attigit ante Maronis / impleuit magni quam Ciceronis opus’. Translation from Bohn’s Classical Library, London, 1897.
See Martial, IV.14.1, where he actually calls him, ‘Castalidum decus sororum’ (‘honour of the sisters of Castalia’).
quottidiana corr
Marcus Portius Latro, a rhetor of Hispanic origin, a contemporary of Seneca the Elder, who mentions him in his Controversiae, celebrated by Quintilian and Pliny the Elder, among others.
Cf. Codro, Sermo I, in id., Sermones I–IV (n. 32 above), p. 178: ‘Historici autem ab urbe condita, a principio mundi, scribere res gestas profitentur, et quis urbem condiderit, et quando mundus principium sumpserit, nesciunt. Ibi “epota flumina Medo / prandente” legimus, “Athon velificatum et quicquid Graecia mendax / audet in historia”. Quid scribit Cicero de historicis? Nempe haec verba: “apud Herodotum patrem historiae et apud Theopompum sunt innumerabiles fabulae”. Ergo et historici fabulae.’ Fubini, Storiografia dell’umanesimo (n. 12 above), p. 30, put forward the argument that the frequent theme of ‘Graecia mendax in historia’ (discussed, among other authors, by Annius of Viterbo, Antiquitatum variarum volumina XVII, Rome, 1498) derived, in all likelihood, from Flavius Josephus, although it is better known through Juvenal’s proverbial saying.
For an assessment of Valla’s contributions to science, see Giorgio Valla tra scienza e sapienza, ed. G. Gardenal et al., Florence, 1981.
Fubini, Storiografia dell’umanesimo (n. 12 above), p. 351.
Black, ‘New Laws’ (n. 1 above).
Black, ‘New Laws’ (n. 1 above), p. 129, n. 17.
Salutati does not deal with the topic of the probability (or verisimilitude) of history in the text that has been regarded as the most important testimony of historiographical theory in early humanism, his letter to Juan Fernández de Heredia of 1392, although he does do so in a letter of 1405, addressed to the Genoese historian, Giorgio Stella, in which he distinguishes ‘between the certain knowledge which is the result of rational and philosophical argument or sense perception, and historical knowledge which at best can aspire to verisimilitude or probability’: Black, ‘New Laws’ (n. 1 above), p. 126. Lapo da Castiglionchio had already pointed out the difference between the faithfulness that the historian had to maintain in his representation of the character of some important figure and the probability of the harangues that he delivered; and Accolti composed the speeches in his work De bello by concentrating, not on their authenticity, but on their rhetorical structure and imitation of classical models (ibid.). In Valla’s De expetendis et fugiendis rebus, Venice, 1501, fol. II7v, we read about the argument of probability in the chapters on rhetoric: ‘Probabile est quod ex probabilibus conficitur, quae aut omnibus placeant, aut pluribus, aut clarioribus aut ita esse videatur vel probabile est id quod fere solet fieri aut quod in opinione positum est, aut quod habet in se ad haec quandam similitudinem, sive id falsum sive verum sit, id quatuor habet species: signum, credibile, iudicatum, comparabile.’
J. L. Heiberg, Beiträge zur Geschichte Georg Vallas und seiner Bibliohek, Leipzig, 1896, p. 75: ‘… non tam bellum refferendum esse, quam quo consilio regio nec non Ueneto fuerit administratum ut, si quae legationes contionesque intercesserint, nequidem supprimantur; dein quod ad doctrinam pertinere uidebitur, ut acutum tuum postulat ingenium fertque iudicium singulare, inseras historiae, quam equidem talem fore arbitror, ut sit sibi aeternitatem uendicatura’.
Ibid., p. 54.
Ibid., p. 53.
Ibid., p. 60.
Ibid., p. 65.
Ibid., p. 90.
For a comparison of the encyclopedias by Poliziano and Valla, see, among others, C. Atkinson, Inventing Inventors in Renaissance Europe. Polydore Vergil’s ‘De inventoribus rerum’, Tübingen, 2007, pp. 155–7, who does not, however, touch on the sections corresponding to history.
Angelo Poliziano, Panepistemon, Florence, 1491, sig. b5v.
ea corr
Aristotle, De anima, I.1: ‘τὴν περὶ τῆς ψυχῆς ἱστορίαν’. Indeed, in De anima Aristotle extolls the importance that investigation surrounding the soul has (‘τῆς ψυχής ἱστορία’) over many other branches of knowledge.
The whole passage reproduces, more or less exactly, a good part of chapter 120 of Cicero’s Orator: ‘Cognoscat etiam rerum gestarum et memoriae veteris ordinem, maxime scilicet nostrae civitatis, sed etiam imperiosorum populorum et regum inlustrium … . Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. Quid enim est aetas hominis, nisi ea memoria rerum veterum cum superiorum aetate contexitur? Commemoratio autem antiquitatis exemplorumque prolatio summa cum delectatione et auctoritatem orationi adfert et fidem.’
Again, the entire passage is a paraphrase of Cicero’s De oratore, II.52–3: ‘Erat enim historia nihil aliud nisi annalium confectio, cuius rei, memoriaeque publicae retinendae causa, ab initio rerum Romanarum usque ad P. Mucium pontificem maximum, res omnes singulorum annorum mandabat litteris pontifex maximus, referebatque in album, et proponebat tabulam domi, postestas ut esset populo cognoscendi, hique etiam nunc Annales Maximi nominatur. Hanc similitudinem scribendi multi secuti sunt, qui sine ullis ornamentis monumenta solum temporum, hominum, locorum gestarumque rerum reliquerunt; itaque qualis apud Graecos Pherecydes, Hellanicus, Acusilas fuit aliique permulti, talis noster Cato et Pictor et Piso, qui neque tenent, quibus rebus ornetur oratio, modo enim huc ista sunt importata et, dum intellegatur quid dicant, unam dicendi laudem putant esse brevitatem.’
Cicero, Brutus, 262: ‘nudi enim sunt, recti et venusti, omni ornatu orationis tamquam veste detracta. sed dum voluit alios habere parata, unde sumerent qui vellent scribere historiam, ineptis gratum fortasse fecit, qui volent illa calamistris inurere: sanos quidem homines a scribendo deterruit; nihil est enim in historia pura et inlustri brevitate dulcius’.
Here he abruptly takes up Cicero’s De oratore, II.54 again: ‘Paulum se erexit et addidit maiorem historiae sonum vocis vir optimus, Crassi familiaris, Antipater.’
Cicero, Brutus, 62: ‘ipsae enim familiae sua quasi ornamenta ac monumenta servabant et ad usum, si quis eiusdem generis occidisset, et ad memoriam laudum domesticarum et ad illustrandam nobilitatem suam. quamquam his laudationibus historia rerum nostrarum est facta mendosior. Multa enim scripta sunt in eis quae facta non sunt: falsi triumphi, plures consulatus, genera etiam falsa et ad plebem transitiones, cum homines humiliores in alienum eiusdem nominis infunderentur genus.’
Here Valla is paraphrasing Cicero’s Brutus, 42–3: ‘Quoniam quidem concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historiis, ut aliquid dicere possint argutius. Ut enim tu nunc de Coriolano, sic Clitarchus, sic Stratocles de Themistocle finxit. Nam quem Thucydides, qui et Atheniensis erat et summo loco natus summusque vir et paulo aetate posterior, tantum <morbo> mortuum scripsit et in Attica clam humatum, addidit fuisse suspicionem veneno sibi conscivisse mortem.’
Cicero, De oratore, II.58: ‘Timaeus, quantum autem iudicare possum, longe eruditissimus et rerum copia et sententiarum varietate abundantissimus.’
Frontinis corr
The text that follows deviates very little from the passage in Cicero, De oratore, II.62–3: ‘Nam quis nescit primam esse historiae legem, ne quid falsi dicere audeat? Deinde ne quid veri non audeat? Ne quae suspicio gratiae sit in scribendo? Ne quae simultatis? Haec scilicet fundamenta nota sunt omnibus, ipsa autem exaedificatio posita est in rebus et verbis: rerum ratio ordinem temporum desiderat, regionum descriptionem; vult etiam, quoniam in rebus magnis memoriaque dignis consilia primum, deinde acta, postea eventus exspectentur, et de consiliis significari quid scriptor probet et in rebus gestis declarari non solum quid actum aut dictum sit, sed etiam quo modo. Et cum de eventu dicatur, ut causae explicentur omnes vel casus vel sapientiae vel temeritatis hominumque ipsorum non solum res gestae, sed etiam, qui fama ac nomine excellant, de cuiusque vita atque natura.’
Cicero, De finibus, V.51: ‘quid historia delectet, quam solemus persequi usque ad extremum, <cum> praetermissa repetimus, inchoata persequimur’.
Ipsis corr
Cicero, De finibus, V.52: ‘Quid, quod homines infima fortuna, nulla spe rerum gerendarum, opifices denique delectantur historia? Maximeque eos videre possumus res gestas audire et legere velle, qui a spe gerendi absunt confecti senectute.’
Suavis corr
Cicero, De oratore, II.64: ‘Verborum autem ratio et genus orationis fusum atque tractum et cum lenitate quadam aequabiliter profluens sine hac iudiciali asperitate et sine sententiarum forensibus aculeis persequendum est.’
Cicero, Orator, 66: ‘Huic generi historia finitima est, in qua et narratur ornate et regio saepe aut pugna describitur.’
Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, I.10.40: ‘Reprehensique a geometris sunt historici qui magnitudinem insularum satis significari navigationis ambitu crediderunt.’
Valla draws on the passage from Cicero here (Orator, 66): ‘interponuntur etiam contiones et hortationes, sed in his tracta quaedam et fluens expetitur, non haec contorta et acris oratio’.
Demetrius, De elocutione, 19: ‘ἱστορικὴ μὲν ἡ μήτε περιηγμένη, μήτ’ ἀνειμένη σφόδρα, ἀλλὰ μεταξὺ ἀμφοῖν’.
Pliny the Elder, Historia naturalis, VII.205: ‘Prosam orationem condere Pherecydes Syrius instituit Cyri regis aetate, historiam Cadmus Milesius.’ Pliny, however, considers him to be a precursor in the use of prose, leaving the title of first historian to Cadmus of Miletus, to whom Valla refers.
Chronicles, like annals, characteristically follow a chronological order in the exposition of the facts.
Lucius Coelius Antipater, in the second century BC, introduced the rhetorical tricks of Hellenistic historiography into Roman history. He wrote a history of the Second Punic War.
Cicero refers in this chapter to the custom of noble Roman families of writing funeral eulogies of their most illustrious members, which led to the insertion of facts that did not necessarily correspond to reality.
That is, its height.
In other words, the area of a triangle is calculated by multiplying the base by the height and dividing the result by two.
Valla deals with geometry in Books X–XV of the first volume of De expetendis et fugiendis rebus.
The formula for the height is the square root of the difference after subtracting one half of the base squared from one side squared: h = √l2 – (b/2)2.
A Greek philosopher of the sixth century, possibly Pythagoras’s teacher, Pherecydes is known as one of the earliest Greek prose writers.
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Appendices
Appendix
Proem to the translation of Flavius Josephus, Josepho De bello Iudaico in lingua toscana, Florence, Bartolommeo di Libri, 1493
‘Proemio in laude della historia et del opera overo libro di Iosepho, historico prestantissimo, con sommo studio et diligentia impresso nella magnifica ciptà di Firenze’
Di quanta utilitade sia la cognitione della historia Cicerone et molti altri auctori prestantissimi el dichiarano. Peroché dicono la historia esser testimonio de tempi passati, memoria delle cose facte, luce di veritade, nuntio di antiquitade, magistra di vita et madre di virtude. L’historia sola fa che gli absenti et i posteri, come se fussino stati presenti, habbino notitia delle cose passate, et per li exempli et varietà degli altri diventino prudenti, et con breve lectione conseguino quello che con lunghezza di tempo et con molta experientia affatica si può comprendere. Questo certamente fa la historia: che gl’huomini excellenti, i quali noi habbiamo in admiratione et con laude egregie per infino al cielo subleviamo, con grandissimo studio ci sforziamo di imitare. Però Fabio si sforzò di imitar Pericle; Cato Portio, Curio; Cesare, Alexandro Magno; et così molti altri, accesi di incredibile ardore, hanno facto cose preclare. Ancora per la cognitione della historia noi vegniamo a conoscere l’origine et progressi di tutte le genti, natione et popoli, et li gesti de grandissimi re et signori facti in tempo di guerre et in tempo di pace. Finalmente la historia ne induce et exhorta a pietade, iustitia, fortezza, prudentia, liberalitade, continentia, humanitade et a tutte le virtude. La historia è parte di philosophia morale, perché a noi dà varii exempli del ben vivere, et è quasi uno specchio overo imagine, nella quale veggiamo li gesti degl’huomini excellenti. Essendo adunque la historia sempre stata in grandissimo prezzo et degnità, con che diligentia, con che studio potremo noi commendare Iosepho hebreo, historico prestantissimo? El quale, con somma facundia et elegantia scripse vera historia, non udita da altri, ma da sé veduta, nella quale intervenne et fu presente. Certo lui ha chiaramente descripto la guerra de’ Giudei col popolo Romano, la quale fu grandissima, dove intervennon molti reami, natione et popoli, et subsidio di varii et potentissimi exerciti, non solamente quasi di tutta la Asia, ma di Europa et Aphrica. Et finalmente, Hierosolima, famosa et clarissima città di tutto l’Oriente, capo della gente hebrea, fu presa, rubata et destructa. Exhorto addunque tutti gl’huomini desiderosi di conoscere casi varii, sito di provincie, regione et ciptadi, mari, fiumi, insule, monti et fortezze, et cose et gesti preclaramente facti, a legger questa opera degnissima con sommo studio, cura et diligentia impressa. Vale, lector, ac foelix legito.
‘Proem in Praise of History and of the Work or Book by Josephus, Most Illustrious Historian, Printed with Great Attention and Care in the Magnificent City of Florence’
Cicero and other most illustrious authors declare how useful the knowledge of history is, for history is the witness of times past, the memory of things done, the light of truth, the messenger of antiquity, the master of life and the mother of virtue. History alone makes that those who were absent and those who will come in the future, as if they had been present, have knowledge of things past, and through the examples and the variety of others, become prudent, and with a brief lesson achieve what in a long time and with much experience can hardly be understood. This is certainly what history does: that we endeavour to imitate the excellent men whom we admire and whom we raise even to heaven with eminent praise. That is why Fabius endeavoured to imitate Pericles; Marcus Porcius Cato, Manius Curius Dentatus; Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great; and many others in this way, who, ignited with incredible ardour, have done glorious things. Besides, through the knowledge of history we come to be acquainted with the origin and progress of all the races, nations and peoples, and the deeds of great kings and lords in times of peace and in times of war. Finally, history incites and exhorts to piety, justice, fortitude, prudence, liberality, continence, humanity and to all the virtues. History is part of moral philosophy because it gives us various examples of good living, and it is almost a mirror or an image where we see the gestures of excellent men. Therefore, having history always been regarded in the highest consideration and dignity, with what diligence, with what care can we recommend Josephus the Jew, most illustrious historian? He, with great eloquence and elegance, wrote a true history, unheard by others, but seen by him, at which he was present and in which he participated. To be sure, he has clearly described the war of the Jews against the Roman people, which was a great war where many kingdoms, nations and peoples participated with the help of various and very powerful armies, not only from almost all of Asia, but also from Europe and Africa. And in the end Jerusalem, a most famous and illustrious city in all of the Orient, headquarters of the Jewish people, was taken, robbed and destroyed. I therefore encourage all men who are eager to know various cases, sites of provinces, regions and cities, seas, rivers, islands, mountains and fortresses, and things and deeds famously done, to read this most worthy work which has been printed with great care, attention and diligence. Greetings, reader, and read happily.
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Pineda, V., Villalba, J. Two Humanist Views on the Art of History: Filippo Beroaldo the Elder and Giorgio Valla. Int class trad 28, 285–318 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-019-00556-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-019-00556-w