Poggio Bracciolini

Poggio Bracciolini, sometimes: Gianfrancesco Poggio Bracciolini or Giovanni Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, Latin: Poggius or Poggius Florentinus (* February 11 1380 in today's Terra Bracciolini, † October 30, 1459 in Florence), was one of the most important humanists of the Italian Renaissance. He was one of its pioneers, as he made accessible again some of the most important works of antiquity, rediscovered and of European intellectual world. Extremely important is his contribution to the history of the Latin script, including the humanist font, as its actual inventor he is.

Life

Poggio Bracciolini grew up in the Tuscan village of Terra Nuova on at Arezzo, which was in 1862 renamed in his honor in Terra Bracciolini. The Bracciollini del Val d' Arno or di Firenze family originally came from the little over 900 m high place Lanciolina or Anciolina at Loro Ciuffenna.

His father Guccio Bracciolini (about 1345-1415/1420 ) was a chemist, his mother Jacoba ( 1359 - after 1426) daughter of a notary. He studied art in Florence notary, including lessons in Latin and rhetoric belonged. While still a student - which he successfully completed in 1402 - he came into contact with the Florentine chancellor Coluccio Salutati, who recognized his talent and encouraged him. He received so access to the circle of humanists who gathered in Florence to Coluccio. For Coluccio and under his guidance he copied manuscripts. He used it a font that was ajar under renunciation of the black letter of the Carolingian minuscule; this was the birth of the humanist font, of roman became widespread later in the book printing. A manuscript of Poggio's hand, which the treatise De verecondia ( " About the shame " ) of Salutati contains ( Laur. Strozz. 96) and was built between 1402 and November 1403, is regarded as her oldest preserved example.

In the fall of 1403 he went to kick his ten- year-older friend Leonardo Bruni to Rome, where he first found shelter as private secretary to the Bishop of Bari Landolfo Maramoldo. Soon after, he received his well-paid post of clerk of the apostolic Curia by Pope Boniface IX .. This position he also held under the popes Innocent VII († 1406) and Gregory XII. ( abdicated 1415) and the anti-popes Alexander V. († 1410) and John XXIII. ( sold in May 1415). Under the latter, he was promoted to the apostolic secretary.

Poggio took part in the Council of Constance, where he witnessed the Häresieprozess against Jerome of Prague, which ended with his conviction and execution. About this event he reported in a moving letter to Leonardo Bruni. Despite a widespread but false opinion Poggio wrote a book about the condemnation of Jan Hus. Richard G. Salomon demonstrated that it is the much-quoted text is a forgery. The Council drew on for years - from November 5, 1414 until April 22, 1418 - and Poggio was carried out according to the constancy in dismissal of his employer John XXIII. without a job. Therefore, he took the time to visit libraries and monasteries of Germany and France according to ancient texts, the existence of the early humanists was known, were nowhere to be found but in Italy. He discovered long-lost texts of Cicero, Tacitus, Quintilian, Vegetius, Marcus Manilius, Ammianus Marcellinus, Vitruvius, Statius, Lucretius and Petronius. In addition, Poggio specialized sure to assign individual fragments based on the writing style a determined author and to reconstruct lost works that way.

The years 1418-1422 spent Poggio at the invitation of Bishop Henry Beaufort in England, but there was not happy. In February 1423 he returned to Rome and worked from May returned to his former position as apostolic secretary to the Curia, first under Pope Martin V. ( until 1431), then under Eugenius IV ( 1431-1447 ) and finally under Nicholas V. From June 1453 to 1458 he was head of the Florentine firm under the Medici.

How many humanists of his time who also wrote Poggio exclusively in Latin and also translated Greek works into that language. He left behind an extensive private correspondence and political content and wrote a history of Florence.

In 2011 published book by American author Stephen Greenblatt The turning point. As the Renaissance began it comes to the rediscovery of the masterpiece De Rerum Natura of the ancient poet Lucretius by Poggio Bracciolini in 1417th The author tells and explains how the discovery of this ancient work in a German monastery heavily on the intellectual history development of the time impact. The extremely modern and free-spirited -looking ideas Lucretius ' on elementary questions about the nature of things, of matter but also for meaningful and joyful life of man can Greenblatt with the medieval, gloomy -drawn world collide. It was not until the rediscovery by Bracciolini have helped the ancient works in the Renaissance to its actual intellectual-historical importance and effectiveness as a major impetus to modern.

As a literary figure

Conrad Ferdinand Meyer makes the protagonist of his novel Poggio Plautus in the nunnery, the first version in 1881 under the title The Brigitta Trogen appeared and gave the author himself for one of his more minor works. In her Poggio appears broken by the historicist relativism in the late 19th century, when an almost tragic figure, as a skeptic, which no other remained as aesthetic values ​​and yet senses that so the foundation of human society is undermined: " ' and ' - he sighed -' reluctant I return to those Jugendlichkeiten back, now that I put the impartiality of my positions and the reliability of my view of life with my son - degenerate into intolerable impertinence, even to wickedness - I do not force that eerie law of increase see it. ' " ( The Brigitta Trogen p. 14)

The novelists Monaldi & product range can Poggio The mystery of time occur in their history as a crime dubious background figure. They bring him in connection with counterfeiting gangs that have created numerous, only ostensibly ancient texts during the Renaissance. The plot of the novel makes reference to the conspiracy theory Chronologiekritik scientifically untenable, had been invented by the parts of the ancient history of such forgers.

Works

• De avaritia "On Greed " (1428-1429)
• An seni sit uxor ducenda " If an old man get married? " ( 1436 )
• De nobilitate " About the nobility" ( 1440)
• De infelicitate principum " About the prince of misfortune " ( 1440)
• De varietate fortunae "On the transience of happiness " (4 Books, 1448 ) 1 Description of the ruins of Rome
• 2 / 3 Fates of princes, knights, kings, popes, Kurialbeamten
• 4 Report of the visit to India of Niccolò de 'Conti

• Against Francesco Filelfo (4 invective )
• Against Morroni Tomaso da Rieti
• Against Felix V. ( antipope ) ( 1447 )
• Lorenzo Valla against (5 invective, 1452-1453 )
• In fidei viola tores ( against the Florentine magistrates )

• Funeral oration for Cardinal Francesco Zabarella ( 1417 )
• Funeral oration for Niccolò Niccoli
• Funeral oration for Lorenzo di Giovanni de ' Medici ( 1440)
• Funeral oration for Cardinal Niccolò Albergati ( 1443 )
• Funeral oration for Leonardo Bruni ( 1444 )
• Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini for funeral oration ( 1445 )

• Oratio in Laudem legum ( 1436 or 1440)
• Oratio in Laudem rei publicae Venetorum ( 1459 )
• Oratio in Laudem matrimonii

• Liber facetiarum or Confabulationes (1438-1452)

• Historiae Florentine populi. Poggio's son Jacopo translated this work, which Poggio left unfinished, in Italian. It describes the history of Florence until January 23, 1455th

There are over 558 delivers letters addressed to 172 different addressees. Three collections of letters issued by Poggio himself: in 1436, 1438 ( extended in 1445 ), and a third collection in six books, which covers the period 1445-1455. A seventh book contains the rest of his letters to his death.

• Cyropaedie of Xenophon (1443-1447)
• Diodorus ( 1449 ) the first five books
• Lucian ( 1455 )

• Mode epistolandi
• De ecclesiae reformatione
• Jan Hus the Heretic. Interrogation, conviction and execution, hope - world -verlag, Schopfheim 1998, ISBN 3-933785-00-6.

Editions and translations

• Opera. Strasbourg 1513 (online at CAMENA ).
• Poggii Florentini Opera. Heinrich Petri, Basel 1538 (online, online).
• Edition of the letters: Epistulae. 3 volumes. Tommaso Tonelli. Florence 1832-1861 (Vol. 1 online ).
• Opera omnia. Riccardo Fubini (ed.). 4 volumes. Bottega d' Erasmo, Turin from 1964 to 1969. ( No new edition, but reprint of Basel in 1538 with further work reprints and letters )
• Humanities. Helene Harth (ed.). 3 volumes. Olski, Florence 1984-1987.
• De varietate Fortunae. Edizione critica con introduzione e commento a cura di Outi Merisalo. Helsinki 1993.
• Facezie. Stefano Pittaluga (ed.). Milano 1995.
• De infelicitate principum. Davide Canfora (ed.). Roma 1998.
• De vera nobilitate. Introduzione e testo critico. Davide Canfora (ed.). Roma 2002.
• Contra hypocritas ( = Edizione nazionale dei testi umanistici 9). Davide Canfora (ed.). Roma 2008.

• The stories and purr of the Florentine Poggio Bracciolini, Gian Francesco. Alfred Semerau ( translator's and eds.). German publisher Actiengesellschaft, Leipzig 1905.
• The Facezien of Poggio Fiorentino. Hanns Floerke ( translator's ). Georg Müller, Munich 1906 ( Internet Archive ). Other editions of this translation: The Facezien the Florentine Poggio. Hanau in 1967, Leipzig 1967, Leipzig 2004.
• Uli Münzel (comment) and Hans Jörg Schweizer ( translator's ): swimming in the mirror of his guests. In: New Year Baden leaves, No. 55 ( 1980), pp. 41-50 (online). ( annotated translation of a letter from Poggio on the Swiss Baden)