David Marsh. Giannozzo Manetti: The Life of a Florentine Humanist.

Abstract

The Italian magistrate and scholar Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459) was celebrated by his peers as one of the most significant intellectuals of his time. He belonged to the circle of major Renaissance humanists such as Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, Francesco Filelfo, and Lorenzo Valla. However, despite his contemporary reputation, and despite the long-lasting success of his treatise De dignitate et excellentia hominis [On the Dignity and Excellence of Man], completed in 1453 and embraced as a programmatic manifesto of Renaissance humanism, most of Manetti’s extensive literary work has been covered by the veil of oblivion. There is no doubt of the renewed interest in Manetti among Renaissance scholars today, as recent editions and translations of his work and the publication of a series of scholarly studies demonstrate. Nevertheless, a comprehensive intellectual biography of Manetti’s life and work has so far been missing, at least in the English-speaking world. David Marsh’s Giannozzo Manetti: The Life of a Florentine Humanist is, for that reason, a most welcome contribution.