Francesco Patrizi e a crítica à concepção historiográfica do “burlesco” Luciano

Abstract

The series of norms and considerations about the historiographic work established by Lucian in his How to Write History exercised a great influence on the genre of the ars historica in Renaissance. If Cicero’s De oratore is the main literary source for the recovery of the exemplum, Lucian’s work is often called into question in regard to issues related to the writing of the historical account, such as diction and style, brevity, syntax, as well as the qualities of a good historian. The crisis of this model of humanist historiography will be criticized by Francesco Patrizi da Cherso, in his “Della historia diece dialoghi”, published in 1560 in Venice. In the opening dialogues, Patrizi condemns the early humanists’ diligent affiliation to the auctoritates, in an endeavor to bring down the basis from which the whole preceding historiography was built. Thus, this article aims at: evincing the presence of Lucian’s work in humanist historiography; and 2) examining the sense of Patrizi’s criticism of the principles given by the “beffardo” Luciano.