Ars historica
Ars Historica was a genre of humanist historiography in the later Renaissance. It produced a small library of treatises underscoring the stylistic aspects of writing history as a work of art, but also introducing the contributions of philology and textual criticism in its precepts and evaluations.
Background
At the summit of his
Within the context of the rhetorical culture of humanism, the ars historica was an attempt to introduce critical and scholarly criteria into historical literature. Its significance was great during the period of confessional struggle between Protestants and Catholics in the later sixteenth century. In addition to the examples of the classical historians (
Sixteenth century
The attempt to raise history to the status of a classical ars derived impetus from the mid-century critical renewal brought about by the
The vogue of the genre was international, stretching beyond the Italy of Robortello, Patrizi and their followers and the France of Bodin to the
Subsequently, Perna's work served the Jesuit Antonio Possevino for his critique of Bodin [1592] and as the target and textual source for his Apparatus ad omnium gentium historiam (1597). It plagiarizes Bodin, but also updates his bibliography (Lipsius, Baronio, Carolus Sigonius, Tasso) and censures works on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
Seventeenth century
In the century that followed, interest in the rhetoric of the genre continued, though its intellectual content was exhausted. The literary focus of
Notes
- ^ Neal W. Gilbert (1960). Renaissance Concepts of Method. New York: Columbia University Press.
- ^ Girolamo Cotroneo (1971) I trattatisti dell'Ars Historica, Naples, Giannini.
References
- Peter G. Bietenholz, (1959) Der italienische Humanismus und die Blutezeit des Buchdrucks in Basel: die Basler Drucke italianischer Autoren von 1530 bis zum Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts, Basel-Stuttgart, Helbig & Lichtenhahn.
- Perini, Leandro, (2002) La vita e i tempi di Pietro Perna, Rome, Edizioni di storia, provides a numbered catalogue of the 430 editions printed by Perna between 1549 and 1582, including a library of historical works.
- Grafton, Anthony, (2007) What Was History? The art of history in early modern Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, is a brilliant discussion of the Ars Historica tradition.
- ISBN 9788842000310.