Original scientific paper
Exchange of Knowledge about Antiquity in the Epistles of Croatian Humanism in the 15th Century
Marko Špikić
orcid.org/0000-0002-2219-1448
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The topic of the paper is a review of the use of Humanist epistles for antiquarian and historical research into Antiquity in Dalmatia in the 15th century. It discusses the development of the epistolary genre as vehicle for antiquarian in-formation and so implicitly of the Humanist project for the revival of ancient culture. Epistles are a literary form that served Humanists of the age of Petrarch as an aid in intimate correspondence with learned contemporaries as well as with the deceased orators, statesmen, historians and poets of Antiquity. In order to give as precise a possible depiction of the antiquarian tradition inherited by Marulić in his research into antiquities, the author recalls the importance of Petrarch as com-poser of epistles in which antique culture was evoked or described. His heirs were authors of large epistolary oeuvres, such as Coluccio Salutati, Pier Paolo Vergerio the Elder, Leonardo Bruni and Poggio Bracciolini.
Petrarch started communication with the ancient writers, composing epistles to Varro, Cicero, Livy, Horace, Virgil, Seneca and Quintilian. His epistle to Giovanni Colonna of about 1337 increased antiquarian interest in the Roman ruins, which after that time would gain in critical strength. As shown by the works of Arnaldo Momigliano and Roberto Weiss, Humanist research into the ancient cultural heritage within the genre of the epistle linked two epistemological resources: reading and observation. This helped to create the Humanist epistemology, affirming the importance of historical testimonies.
From Humanism, epistles were no longer documents of intimate contemplation, which the writer wished to share with the recipient, but became a place for exchange of ideas and information about new discoveries in libraries and »archaeological« sites. Becoming a tool of Humanist secularisation, epistles at the same time brought news about the discovery of the works of Quintilian and Vitruvius and discoveries of inscriptions and statues. The combination of written and visual culture can be seen in the influence of Petrarch’s evocations of writers of antiquity on the vivification of prosopopoeia in painting of the second half of the 14th and in the early 15th century in Italy.
In his epistles Coluccio Salutati explained etymologies and toponomastics, and in his correspondence with Manuel Chrysoloras, on the model of Plutarch, he compared the achievements of the Greeks and the Romans, whom he considered the forebears of the Florentines.
In 1398 Vergerio composed an epistle on the monuments of Rome, following in the steps of Petrarch. A year earlier he had written bitterly to Ludovico Alidosi about the demolition of the monument to Virgil in Mantua.
From 1403 Poggio sent reports about the discovery of the ancient epitaphs in Rome. His fame from the discovery of Quintilian in St Gallen much depended on the preservation of the epistle to Guarini of 1416, in which he described the dis-covery. Poggio reported to Niccolò Niccoli about the antiquarian discoveries and archaeological excursions in the vicinity of Rome during the 1420s. Close to such reports was the epistle of Leonardo Bruni to Niccoli of 1407, in which the monuments in Rimini are described.
The group of Humanists was soon to be joined by Cyriacus of Ancona (1391-1452), who described the monuments seen on his many journeys around he east-ern Mediterranean in drawings and descriptions inside his epistles. Keeping up with the contemporary debate of Poggio and Guarini about the superiority of Scipio or Caesar, in 1435-1436 Cyriacus composed the epistle Caesarea Laus. He sent this to Leonardo Bruni in Florence; it is based on a dream vision he apparently had in Zadar. The vision recalls Scipio’s dream in Cicero’s De re publica, and the world of Lucian, which was then also being evoked by Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) in his writings.
Very important for the history of Dalmatian Humanism are the facts that Cyriacus gives about the Zadar Humanist circle that took part in the controversy – Juraj Benja (Georgius Begna and Marinus Soloneus). Cyriacus mentions some of the Zadar monuments.
Some of the many epistles of Archbishop of Zadar Maffeo Vallaresso of the middle of the 15th century, showing the development of the genre that was then a medium of expression for the Humanists L. Valla, F. Filelfo, F. Biondo, A. Panormita, E. S. Piccolomini, P. Barbo, P. della Mirandola, E. Barbaro and A. Poliziano, give interesting information about the finding and assembly of monuments of Antiquity. Roberto Weiss has already brought out the role of Vallaresso in the collection of numismatic items for Pietro Barbo, powerful cardinal and future Pope Paul II. Here other Vallaresso correspondents are mentioned, those with whom the archbishop exchanged evocations of the time of Antiquity – Lauro Quirini of Padua and Archbishop of Split Lovro Zane. With them Vallaresso swapped information from Diogenes Laertius, Cicero and Lucretius. The paper shows the adaptability of the epistle in the second half of the 15th century, in two more aspects: its increasing kinship with larger prose forms (epistolae praefatoriae) and in the appearance of the awareness of the need for the classification of the genre.
The first aspect is seen in Dalmatia in Marulić’s foreword to the work In epigrammata priscorum commentarius, where the writer in his epistles addresses an individual (Dmine Papalić) from the scholarly community. We can see a similar appearance even earlier, in the work Petri Mocenici Imperatoris gesta of Coriolanus Cepio / Coriolano Cippico (Koriolan Cipiko). This work is dedicated to Marcantonio Morosoni, and following the epistle is a text that is closest to the Humanist genre of the commentary. The kinship to such treatment of the epistle is seen in earlier Humanists as well: Bruni, who dedicated the work Dialogi ad Petrum Paulum Histrum to Vergerio, Poggio, who dedicated De varietate Fortunae to Nicholas V, and Alberti, who dedicated the Italian version of De pictura to Filippo Brunelleschi.
Cippico’s introductory epistle is compared with Alberti’s theoretical texts about the fine arts (De pictura, De statua). Kinship is seen in the awareness of anachronism (Cippico’s and Alberti’s statements about effoeta natura), drawn from Pliny the Younger, as well as in Cippico’s instructions to Morosini to emulate, like painters and sculptors, the best models. The author thinks it is possible that this distinguished member of a patrician family from Trogir, who as early as the 1430s had already possessed texts of Antiquity and Humanism that were read in Florence, might have relied on the instructions of the leading theorist of the fine arts of the time in Italy. The likelihood is the greater in that the Trogir Chapel of the Blessed John, in the building of which Coriolanus had an important role, there are elements of Alberti’s architectural theory from the work De re aedificatoria.
At the end of the 15th century epistles are so ramified that it was necessary to differentiate them according to topic. Thus at the end of the 15th and 16th century, the works of Franciscus Niger (Franjo Niger) De modo epistolandi and the Humanist educator Marin Becichemus De componenda epistola appeared. The works show that in a hundred years the epistle had acquired an important position in exchange of information about the Ancient world, as well as in the development of the new, Renaissance, culture.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
35385
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2009.
Visits: 3.201 *