Dialogical Strategies, <i>Volgarizzamento</i>, and Ciceronian <i>Ethos</i> in Antonio Brucioli's <i>Dialogi Della Morale Filosofia</i>

Abstract

In 1526, Antonio Brucioli (1487-1566) published a series of thirty dialogues that form a typical humanist compendium of moral and political wisdom in the vernacular. Scholars have considered these dialogues mainly from the perspective of Brucioli’s humanist and political allegiances, in particular with exiled Florentine humanists whose discussions in the Orti Oricellari the dialogues echo. However, textual reworkings in subsequent editions (1538 and 1544, in which this group constitutes the first volume, entitled Della morale filosofia, of a series that includes other volumes of dialogues on natural philosophy) warrant a reconsideration that complements intellectual history with literary and rhetorical analysis. This article revalorizes Brucioli’s Dialogi della morale filosofia by arguing that their literary and rhetorical strategies, such as the use of ancient dialogue models, the shifting choice and staging of interlocutors, the creation of Ciceronian ethos and decorum, and the mimetic aspects of the interaction of male and female voices not only evince a conscious application of early Cinquecento dialogue poetics, but also establish the author’s volgarizzamento of a compendium of classical and humanist wisdom as a uniquely Italian project aimed at an emulation and appropriation of moral philosophy by dialogical speaking at the level of a national cultural elite.