‘In the Footsteps of the Ancients’: The Origins of Humanism from Lovato to Bruni (review)

Abstract

In Footsteps of Ancients.- The Origins of Humanism from Lovato to Bruni. By Ronald G. Witt. [Studies Medieval and Reformation Thought, Volume LXXIV.] (Leiden: E. J. Brill. 2000. Pp. xiii, 562. $162.00.) Ronald Witt's new book, recipient 2000 of Renaissance Society of America's Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize, represents culmination of decades of research on emergence and development of humanism. In it he self-consciously aims to challenge, indeed to upend, conventional assumptions about origins of humanism. Readers discover that they should no longer think of humanism springing fully formed from mind and pen of Petrarch fourteenth century or of as humanism's birthplace. The emergence of humanism required a lengthy process, and its earliest origins lie thirteenth century with Paduan poet Lovato dei Lovati (1240/41-1309). Lovato broke with northern Italian tradition of producing chivalric poetry Provencal to write classicizing verse Latin. His principal inspiration was Seneca, and his outlook was decidedly secular. The use of Latin, study and imitation of classical authors, choice of secular themes: these are essential ingredients of what Witt calls the new aesthetic. That this aesthetic first manifested itself poetry makes perfect sense when one considers that ars dictaminis, medieval formal style for Latin composition, concerned itself with prose, not with verse. Compared to Padua, early fourteenth-century was of a cultural backwater for study of ancient Latin writers (p. 173). In first half of Trecento, witnessed a growth vernacular literature, which in short run hindered development of humanism Florence (p. 229) because it detracted from Latin learning.Yet many vernacular translations of classical literature familiarized Florentines with ancient culture and helped them value it, thus paving way for emergence of humanism second half of Trecento. The process of humanism's origins comes to a close with Leonardo Bruni and his generation at beginning of Quattrocento. Several developments indicate that humanism was by then fully formed. Dictamen, which had to be dislodged from one genre of prose after another something like a house-tohouse campaign (p. 443), experienced its complete demise with emergence of a classicizing oratory With revival of oratory Cicero replaced Seneca as principal source of inspiration and imitation. Under auspices of Bruni the first Ciceronianism forged powerful links between classical oratory and political ideology Florence. Cicero and his literary aesthetic served as basis for support of city's republican constitution, contributed to elaboration of a civic ethic independent of religious influence, and won over Florentine patriciate for humanism. Not surprisingly, Hans Baron's interpretation of Bruni's Laudatio Fiorentinae Urbis and response of Baron's critics frames Witt's discussion of ties between a new humanist aesthetic and Florentine politics. While Witt acknowledges that Florentine oligarchy adopted language of republicanism its own interest to prevent popular challenges to its authority, he argues for another source that shaped ruling elite's conception of government: extended contact with ancient literature and history, wherein ancient civic ethic and republicanism were extolled (p. …