A Tale of Two Languages. Latin, the Vernacular, and Leonardo Bruni’s Civic Humanism

Abstract

This article reconstructs the views of Leonardo Bruni concerning the different natures, historical trajectories, and domains of Latin and the Florentine vernacular. It argues that his encomia of Florentine culture are careful to distinguish the two, and indeed that this distinction holds the key to reconciling the seemingly contradictory positions regarding Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio espoused in his Dialogues for Pier Paolo Vergerio. Bruni’s concept of the Latin language, moreover, explains why he believed that humanists were required to restore it to its Ciceronian glory. If Latin regained the functions it had had in Cicero’s day, this would exclude the Ciompi and the lower guilds from Florentine politics, and thus refashion Florence in the image of the Roman Republic both linguistically and politically. The article therefore salvages some of Hans Baron’s 'civic humanism', in that it shows Bruni – Baron’s archetypical civic humanist – to advocate self-government by the Latinate elites