Lucretius and the Epicureans in the Social and Political Context of Renaissance Florence

Abstract

Following the rediscovery of Lucretius's 'De Rerum Natura' by Florentine scholar Poggio Bracciolini in 1417, copies of the controversial manuscript proliferated in Florence over the next fifty years. Although Lucretius's unorthodox denial of the afterlife and association with Epicurus's reputation for hedonism and materialism would later result in a general ban on the classical work in Florentine scholastic institutions, Lucretius's perceptions of nature, particularly his views on fear and death and primitivism and evolution, resonated with the contemporary concerns of 15th-century Florentines.