Poggio Bracciolini
Poggio Bracciolini | |
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Papal Secretary | |
Children | 5 sons and a daughter |
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (Italian: [dʒaɱ franˈtʃesko ˈpɔddʒo brattʃoˈliːni]; 11 February 1380[2] – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He is noted for rediscovering and recovering many classical Latin manuscripts, mostly decaying and forgotten in German, Swiss, and French monastic libraries. His most celebrated finds are De rerum natura, the only surviving work by Lucretius, De architectura by Vitruvius, lost orations by Cicero such as Pro Sexto Roscio, Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, Statius' Silvae, and Silius Italicus's Punica, as well as works by several minor authors such as Frontinus' De aquaeductu, Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae (Rerum gestarum Libri XXXI), Nonius Marcellus, Probus, Flavius Caper, and Eutyches.
Birth and education
Poggio di Guccio (the surname Bracciolini added during his career)[3] was born near Arezzo, in Tuscany, in the village of Terranuova, which in 1862 was renamed Terranuova Bracciolini in his honor.
Taken by his father to Florence to pursue the studies for which he appeared so apt, he studied Latin under the amanuensis Giovanni Malpaghino[4] of Ravenna, the friend and protégé of Petrarch. His distinguished abilities and his dexterity as a copyist of manuscripts brought him into early notice of the chief scholars of Florence; both Coluccio Salutati and Niccolò de' Niccoli befriended him.[5] He studied notarial law, and, at the age of twenty-one he was received into the Florentine notaries' guild, the Arte dei giudici e notai.
Career and later life
In October 1403, on high recommendations from Salutati and
Throughout his long career of 50 years, Poggio served a total of seven popes: Boniface IX (1389–1404),
The greater part of Poggio's long life was spent in attendance to his duties in the Roman Curia at Rome and the other cities the pope was constrained to move his court.[5] Although he spent most of his adult life in his papal service, he considered himself a Florentine working for the papacy. He actively kept his links to Florence and remained in constant communication with his learned and influential Florentine friends: Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), Niccolò de' Niccoli (1364–1437), Lorenzo de' Medici the elder (1395–1440), Leonardo Bruni (Chancellor, 1369–1444), Carlo Marsuppini ("Carlo Aretino", Chancellor, 1399–1453), and Cosimo de' Medici (1389–1464).
In England
After Martin V was elected as the new pope in November 1417, Poggio, although not holding any office, accompanied his court to Mantua in late 1418, but, once there, decided to accept the invitation of Henry, Cardinal Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, to go to England. His five years spent in England, until returning to Rome in 1423, were the least productive and satisfactory of his life.[6]
In Florence
Poggio resided in Florence during 1434−36 with Eugene IV. On the proceeds of a sale of a manuscript of Livy in 1434, he built himself a villa in the Valdarno, which he adorned with a collection of antique sculpture (notably a series of busts meant to represent thinkers and writers of antiquity), coins and inscriptions, works that were familiar to his friend Donatello.[7]
In December 1435, at age 56, tired of the unstable character of his single life, Poggio left his long-term mistress and delegitimized the fourteen children he had had with her, scoured Florence for a wife, and married a girl of a noble Florentine family, not yet 18, Selvaggia dei Buondelmonti. In spite of the remonstrances and dire predictions of all his friends about the age discrepancy, the marriage was a happy one, producing five sons and a daughter. Poggio wrote a spate of long letters to justify his move, and composed one of his famous dialogues, An seni sit uxor ducenda (Whether an old man should marry, 1436).[8]
Poggio also lived in Florence during the Council of Florence, from 1439 to 1442.
Dispute with Valla
In his quarrel against Lorenzo Valla—an expert at philological analysis of ancient texts with a hot temperament fitted to protracted disputation—Poggio found his match.[9] Poggio started in February 1452 with a full-dress critique of the Elegantiae, Valla's major work on Latin language and style, where he supported a critical use of Latin eruditio going beyond pure admiration and respectful imitatio of the classics.
At stake was the new approach of the humanae litterae (profane classical Greek and Latin literature) in relation to the divinae litterae (biblical exegesis of the Judeo-Christian "sacred scriptures"). Valla argued that biblical texts could be subjected to the same philological criticism as the great classics of antiquity. Poggio held that humanism and theology were separate fields of inquiry, and labeled Valla's mordacitas (radical criticism) as dementia.[10]
Poggio's series of five Orationes in Laurentium Vallam (re-labeled Invectivae by Valla) were countered, line by line, by Valla's Antidota in Pogium (1452−53). It is remarkable that eventually the belligerents acknowledged their talents, gained their mutual respect, and prompted by
Erasmus, in 1505, discovered Lorenzo Valla's Adnotationes in Novum Testamentum (New Testament Notes), which encouraged him to pursue the textual criticism of the Holy Scriptures, free of all academic entanglements that might cramp or hinder his scholarly independence—contributing to Erasmus's stature of leading Dutch Renaissance humanist.[12] In his introduction, Erasmus declared his support of Valla's thesis against the invidia of envious scholars such as Poggio, whom he unfairly described as "a petty clerk so uneducated that even if he were not indecent he would still not be worth reading, and so indecent that he would deserve to be rejected by good men however learned he was." (Quoted in Salvatore I. Camporeale in his essay on the Poggio–Lorenzo dispute).
Later years and death
After the death in April 1453 of his intimate friend Carlo Aretino, who had been the
Poggio's declining days were spent in the discharge of his prestigious Florentine office—glamorous at first, but soon turned irksome—conducting his intense quarrel with
Search for manuscripts
After July 1415—Antipope John XXIII had been deposed by the Council of Constance and the Roman Pope Gregory XII had abdicated—the papal office remained vacant for two years, which gave Poggio some leisure time in 1416/17 for his pursuit of manuscript hunting. In the spring of 1416 (sometime between March and May), Poggio visited the baths at the German spa of Baden. In a long letter to Niccoli (p. 59−68) he reported his discovery of an "Epicurean" lifestyle—one year before finding Lucretius—where men and women bathe together, barely separated, in minimum clothing: "I have related enough to give you an idea what a numerous school of Epicureans is established in Baden. I think this must be the place where the first man was created, which the Hebrews call the garden of pleasure. If pleasure can make a man happy, this place is certainly possessed of every requisite for the promotion of felicity." (p. 66)
Poggio was marked by the passion of his teachers for books and writing, inspired by the first generation of Italian humanists centered around
The literary passions of the learned Italians in the new
He became devoted to the revival of classical studies amid conflicts of popes and antipopes, cardinals and councils, in all of which he played an official part as first-row witness, chronicler and (often unsolicited) critic and adviser.
Thus, when his duties called him to the Council of Constance in 1414, he employed his forced leisure in exploring the libraries of Swiss and Swabian abbeys. His great manuscript finds date to this period, 1415−1417. The treasures he brought to light at Reichenau, Weingarten, and above all St. Gall, retrieved from the dust and abandon many lost masterpieces of Latin literature, and supplied scholars and students with the texts of authors whose works had hitherto been accessible only in fragmented or mutilated copies.[11]
St. Gallen
In his epistles he described how he recovered
Cluny Abbey
In 1415 at Cluny he found Cicero's complete great forensic orations, previously only partially available.[13]
Langres
At Langres in the summer of 1417 he discovered Cicero's Oration for Caecina and nine other hitherto unknown orations of Cicero's.[14]
Monte Cassino
At
Hersfeld Abbey
If a codex could not be obtained by fair means, he was not above using subterfuge, as when he bribed a monk to abstract a Livy and an Ammianus from the library of Hersfeld Abbey.[11]
De rerum natura
Poggio's most famous find was the discovery of the only surviving manuscript of
The manuscript found by Poggio is not extant, but fortunately, he sent the copy to his friend Niccolò de' Niccoli, who made a transcription in his renowned book hand (as Niccoli was the creator of italic script), which became the model for the more than fifty other copies circulating at the time. Poggio would later complain that Niccoli had not returned his original copy for 14 years. Later, two 9th-century manuscripts were discovered, the O (the Codex Oblongus, copied c. 825) and Q (the Codex Quadratus), now kept at Leiden University.[16] The book was first printed in 1473.
The
Friends
Poggio cultivated and maintained throughout his life close friendships with some of the most important learned men of the age:
These learned men were adept at maintaining an extended network of personal relations among a circle of talented and energetic scholars in which constant communication was secured by an immense traffic of epistolary exchanges.
They were bent on creating a rebirth of intellectual life for Italy by means of a vital reconnection with the texts of antiquity. Their worldview was eminently characteristic of
Legacy
Works
Poggio, like Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (who became Pius II), was a great traveller, and wherever he went he brought enlightened powers of observation trained in liberal studies to bear upon the manners of the countries he visited. We owe to his pen curious remarks on English and Swiss customs, valuable notes on the remains of ancient monuments in Rome, and a singularly striking portrait of Jerome of Prague as he appeared before the judges who condemned him to the stake.[11]
In literature he embraced the whole sphere of contemporary studies, and distinguished himself as an orator, a writer of
His cultural/social/moral essays covered a wide range of subjects concerning the interests and values of his time:
- De avaritia (On Greed, 1428−29) - Poggio's first major work. The old school of biographers (Shepherd, Walser) and historians saw in it a traditional condemnation of avarice. Modern historians tend, on the contrary—especially if studying the economic growth of the Italian Trecento and Quattrocento—to read it as a precocious statement of early capitalism, at least in its Florentine form — breaking through the hold of medieval values that disguised the realities of interest and loans in commerce to proclaim the social utility of wealth. It is the voice of a new age linking wealth, personal worth, conspicuous expenditure, ownership of valuable goods and objects, and social status, a voice not recognized until the late 20th century.;[21]
- An seni sit uxor ducenda (On Marriage in Old Age, 1436);
- De infelicitate principum (On the Unhappiness of Princes, 1440);
- De nobilitate (On Nobility, 1440): Poggio, a self-made man, defends true nobility as based on virtue rather than birth, an expression of the meritocracy favored by the rich bourgeoisie;
- De varietate fortunae (On the Vicissitudes of Fortune, 1447);
- Contra hypocritas (Against Hypocrisy, 1448);
- Historia disceptativa convivialis (Historical discussions between guests after a meal) in three parts (1450):
- 1) on expressions of thanks
- 2) on the dignity of medical versus legal profession (a reprise of Salutati's 1398 treatment of the same subject, De Nobilitate Legum et Medicinae): Niccolo Niccoli, appealing to the lessons of experience, is arguing that laws are imposed by the will of the stronger to hold the state together − not God-given to rulers, nor a fact of nature − leading biographer Ernst Walser to conclude that "Poggio, in his writing, presents Machiavellism before Machiavelli."[22]
- 3) on literate Latin versus vernacular Latin in classical Rome; Poggio concludes that they were both the same language, not two distinct idioms.
- De miseria humanae conditionis (On the Misery of Human Life, 1455), reflections in his retirement in Florence inspired by the sack of Constantinople.
These compositions, all written in Latin − and reviving the classical form of dialogues, between himself and learned friends
Poggio's Historia Florentina (History of Florence), is a history of the city from 1350 to 1455, written in avowed imitation of Livy and Sallust, and possibly Thucydides (available in Greek, but translated into Latin by Valla only in 1450–52) in its use of speeches to explain decisions. Poggio continued Leonardo Bruni's History of the Florentine People, which closed in 1402, and is considered the first modern history book. Poggio limited his focus to external events, mostly wars, in which Florence was the defensor Tusciae and of Italian liberty. But Poggio also pragmatically defended Florence's expansionist policies to insure the "safety of the Florentine Republic", which became the key motive of its history, as a premonition of Machiavelli's doctrine. Conceding to superior forces becomes an expression of reason and advising it a mark of wisdom. His intimate and vast experience of Italian affairs inculcated in him a strong sense of realism, echoing his views on laws expressed in his second Historia disceptativa convivialis (1450). Poggio's beautiful rhetorical prose turns his Historia Florentina into a vivid narrative, with a sweeping sense of movement, and a sharp portrayal of the main characters, but it also exemplifies the limitations of the newly emerging historical style, which, in the work of Leonardo Bruni, Carlo Marsuppini and Pietro Bembo, retained "romantic" aspects and did not reach yet the weight of objectivity later expected by the school of modern historians (especially since 1950).[24]
His Liber Facetiarum (1438−1452), or Facetiae, a collection of humorous and indecent tales expressed in the purest Latin Poggio could command, are the works most enjoyed today: they are available in several English translations. This book is chiefly remarkable for its unsparing satires on the monastic orders and the secular clergy.[11] "The worst men in the world live in Rome, and worse than the others are the priests, and the worst of the priests they make cardinals, and the worst of all the cardinals is made pope." Poggio's book became an internationally popular work in all countries of Western Europe, and has gone through multiple editions until modern times.
In addition Poggio's works included his Epistolae, a collection of his letters, a most insightful witness of his remarkable age, in which he gave full play to his talent as chronicler of events, to his wide range or interests, and to his most acerbic critical sense.
Revival of Latin and Greek
In the way of many humanists of his time, Poggio rejected the vernacular Italian and always wrote only in Latin, and translated works from Greek into that language. His letters are full of learning, charm, detail, and amusing personal attack on his enemies and colleagues. It is also noticeable as illustrating the Latinizing tendency of an age which gave classic form to the lightest essays of the fancy.
Poggio was a fluent and copious writer in Latin, admired for his classical style inspired from Cicero, if not fully reaching the elegance of his model, but outstanding by the standards of his age. Italy was barely emerging from what Petrarch had termed the Dark Ages, while Poggio was facing the unique challenge of making "those frequent allusions to the customs and transactions of his own times, which render his writings so interesting... at a period when the Latin language was just rescued from the grossest barbarism... the writings of Poggio are truly astonishing. Rising to a degree of elegance, to be sought for in vain in the rugged Latinity of Petrarca and Coluccio Salutati..."[25] His knowledge of the ancient authors was wide, his taste encompassed all genres, and his erudition was as good as the limited libraries of the time allowed, when books were extremely rare and extraordinarily expensive.[26]
Good instruction in Greek was uncommon and hard to obtain in Italy. Proficient teachers, such as Ambrogio Traversari, were few and highly valued. Manuel Chrysoloras used to be occasionally credited as having instructed Poggio in Greek during his youth, but Shepherd cites a letter by Poggio to Niccolò Niccoli stating that he began the study of Greek in 1424, in Rome at age 44 (Shepherd, p. 6). Poggio's preface to his dialogue On Avarice notes that his task was made the harder "because I can neither translate from the Greek language for our benefit, nor are my abilities such that I should wish to discuss in public anything drawn from these writings"[27] Consequently, his knowledge of Greek never attained the quality of his Latin. His best-efforts translation of Xenophon's Cyropaedia into Latin cannot be praised for accuracy by modern standards. But he was the first critic to label it a "political romance", instead of history. He also translated Lucian's Ass, considered an influence of Apuleius's Latin masterpiece, The Golden Ass.
Invectives
Among contemporaries he passed for one of the most formidable
Invectivae ("
Humanist script
Poggio was famous for his beautiful and legible book hand. Berthold Louis Ullman identified him as the inventor of the type writing known as Humanist minuscule,[28] which gave rise at the end of the fourteenth century to Roman type, which remains popular today.
Recent research by Teresa De Robertis and others has shown that other scribes had used Humanist minuscule before Poggio.[29] So Poggio did not invent the new script, but he was one of the most prolific and distinguished scribes to use it so soon after its development, and his influence no doubt helped it spread through Italy.
Works
- Poggii Florentini oratoris et philosophi Opera : collatione emendatorum exemplarium recognita, quorum elenchum versa haec pagina enumerabit, Heinrich Petri ed., (apud Henricum Petrum, Basel, 1538)
- Poggius Bracciolini Opera Omnia, Riccardo Fubini ed., 4 vol. Series: Monumenta politica et philosophica rariora. (Series 2, 4–7; Torino, Bottega d'Erasmo, 1964–1969)
- Poggii Bracciolini Florentini Historiae de Varietate Fortunae Libri Quatuor, The Stories of Fortune's Vicissitudes, Latin and English, Leo Perlov transl. (Independently Published, 2023)
- Epistolae, Tommaso Tonelli ed. (3 vol., 1832–61); Riccardo Fubini ed. (1982, re-edition of vol. III of Opera Omnia)
- Poggio Bracciolini Lettere, Helen Harth ed., Latin and Italian, (3 vol., Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1984–7)
- The Facetiae, Bernhardt J. Hurwood transl. (Award Books, 1968)
- Facetiae of Poggio and other medieval story-tellers, Edward Storer transl., (London: G. Routledge & Sons & New York: E.P. Dutton, 1928) Online version
- Phyllis Goodhart Gordan transl., Two Renaissance Book Hunters: The Letters of Poggius Bracciolini to Nicolaus De Niccolis (Columbia Un. Press, 1974, 1991)
- Beda von Berchem transl., The infallibility of the Pope at the Council of Constance; the trial of Hus, his sentence and death at the stake, in two letters, (C. Granville, 1930) (The authenticity of this work is in debate since the earliest edition discovered was in German in the 1840s.)[30]
References
- ^ Following an old engraving; from Alfred Gudeman, Imagines philologorum: 160 bildnisse..., (Leipzig/Berlin) 1911.
- ^ Date in Cav. Toneilli's ms Elogi delli uomini illustri Toscani, noted by William Shepherd, The Life of Poggio Bracciolini
- ^ Paolo Piccardi. "Alcuni contratti di Poggio Bracciolini"
- ^ See page in Italian Wikipedia, https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Malpaghini?wprov=sfti1
- ^ a b c Symonds 1911, p. 890.
- ^ David Rundle, "The Scribe Thomas Candour and the making of Poggio Bracciolini's English reputation", in English Manuscript Studies 1100–1700, xii (2005), pp. 1–25.
- ^ Cast, David. "Poge the Florentin: A Sketch of the Life of Poggio Bracciolini". Annali di Storia di Firenze. Firenze University Press: 168.
- ^ A silver-gilt reliquary bust in the form of a mitred bishop, bearing Poggio's and his wife's arms, made to contain relics of Saint Lawrence in 1438 or 1439, is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (James J. Rorimer, 'A Reliquary Bust Made for Poggio Bracciolini" The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin New Series, 14.10 (June 1956), pp. 246−251)
- ^ Lodi Nauta, "Lorenzo Valla", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP, 2009)
- ^ "Poggio concentrates all his literary skill on the task of leading Valla through a carnivalesque triumph whose itinerary goes from earth (the streets of imperial Rome) to the inferno (of Satan and his demons) to the Elysian fields of immortal heroes, and finally back on earth into Valla's miserable hut." Described in Salvatore I. Camporeale, "Poggio Bracciolini versus Lorenzo Valla: The Orationes in Laurentium Vallam" in Joseph Marino & Melinda Schlitt eds., Perspectives on Early Modern & Modern Intellectual History – Essays in Honor of Nancy S. Struever (Un. of Rochester Press, 2001) p. 27−48; which is an extension of a previous article in Italian, "Poggio Bracciolini contro Lorenzo Valla: Le Orationes in L. Vallam" in Poggio Bracciolini 1380–1980 (Firenze, 1982), p. 137−161
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Symonds 1911, p. 891.
- ^ Marvin Anderson, "Erasmus the Exegete" (1969), Concordia Theological Monthly 40 (11): 722–746.
- ^ Kenneth R. Bartlett, "The Italian Renaissance. Part 1. Lecture 6" [sound recording], in Great courses, (Teaching Company, 2005)
- ^ "Classical Scholarship"; Poggio's manuscript codex of eight of the orations, Vatican Library lat. 11458. Poggio's Latin colophon to one may be translated "This oration, formerly lost owing to the fault of the times, Poggio restored to the Latin-speaking world and brought it back to Italy, having found it hidden in Gaul, in the woods of Langres, and having written it in memory of Tully [Marcus Tullius Cicero] and for the use of the learned."
- ^ "Frontinus Translation Introduction". www.uvm.edu. Retrieved 2023-03-06.
- ^ The Earliest Surviving Text of Lucretius's De rerum natura (ca. 825); and The Rediscovery of Lucretius's De rerum natura", both in Jeremy Norman's From Cave Paintings to the Internet
- ^ Stephen Greenblatt, "The Answer Man: An ancient poem was rediscovered—and the world swerved", The New Yorker, (August 8, 2011)
- ^ Jimmy So, "The Book That Changed the World", The Daily Beast, (October 7, 2011)
- ^ David Quint, "Humanism as Revolution", a review of The Swerve - How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt (The New Republic, September 28, 2011)
- ^ Anthony Grafton, "The Most Charming Pagan", a review of The Swerve - How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt (The New York Review of Books, December 8, 2011).
- ^ Ann P. Lang, De Avaritia, p. 109-114
- ^ "Poggio Braccioline legt in seiner Schrift Machiavellismus vor Machiavelli dar." (Ernst Walser, Leben und Werke, p. 258)
- ^ David Marsh, The Quattrocento Dialogue: Classical Tradition and Humanist Innovation (Harvard Un. Press, 1980)
- ^ Frederick Krantz, "Between Bruni and Machiavelli: History, Law, and Historicism in Poggio Bracciolini", in Phyllis Mack & Margaret C. Jacob, Politics & Culture in Early Modern Europe - Essays in Honour of H.G. Koenigsberger (Cambridge Un. Press, 1987), pp. 119–152
- ^ William Shepherd, Life of Poggio Bracciolini (1837), p. 461–2
- ^ Poggio sold 2 volumes of Jerome's epistles for 100 ducats to Lionello d'Este, marquis of Ferrara, which was a quarter of a top university professor's annual salary. When Niccolo Niccoli, who had the largest private collection of manuscripts and copies, died, his library contained 800 books.
- ^ Poggio, On Avarice in Benjamin G. Kohl, Ronald G. Witt and Elizabeth B. Welles, The Earthly Republic: Italian humanists on government and society, (1978), p. 242.
- ^ Berthold Louis Ullman, The origin and development of humanistic script, Rome, 1960, p. 77.
- ^ Teresa De Robertis, "I primi anni della scrittura umanistica: materiali per un aggiornamento", in R. Black, J. Kraye, L. Nuvoloni (eds.), Palaeography, Manuscript Illumination and Humanism in Renaissance Italy: Studies in Memory of A. C. de la Mare, London, 2016, pp. 55–85 and plates 1f.
- ISSN 0075-4390.
Attribution:
- public domain: Symonds, John Addington (1911). "Poggio". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 890–891. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Further reading
- Albert Curtis Clark, "The Literary Discoveries of Poggio", Classical Review 13 (Cambridge, 1899) pp. 119–30.
- Dr. William Shepherd, Life of Poggio Bracciolini (1837 edition available online), the most extensive and authoritative English-language biography to date.
- Georg Voigt, Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums oder das erste Jahrhundert des Humanismus (3d ed., Berlin, 1893), gives a good description of Poggio's place in history.
- John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy (7 vol., Smith, Elder & Co, 1875–86), a historical perspective with a detailed description of Poggio's life.
- Ernst Walser, Poggius Florentinus: Leben & Werke (Berlin, 1914; Georg Olms, 1974; Nabu Press, 2011) 592 p. The most complete biography to-date, with more recent, accurate, and detailed information than William Shepherd's, but not translated into English.
- Riccardo Fubini & S. Caroti, eds., Poggio Bracciolini 1380–1980 - Nel VI centenario della nascita, Latin and Italian, (Florence: Sansoni, 1982)
- Riccardo Fubini, Humanism & Secularization: From Petrarch to Valla, transl. Martha King, (Duke Un. Press, 2003; original edition, Bulzoni, 1990)
- Riccardo Fubini, L'umanesimo italiano e i suoi storici: Origini rinascimentali, critica moderna, (F. Angeli, 2001)
- Riccardo Fubini, Italia quattrocentesca: Politica e diplomazia nell'eta di Lorenzo il Magnifico, (F. Angeli, 1994)
- Benjamin G Kohl; Ronald G Witt; Elizabeth B Welles, The Earthly republic : Italian humanists on government and society (Un. of Pennsylvania Press, 1978)
- Ronald G. Witt, "The Humanist Movement", in Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Heiko A. Oberman, & James D. Tracy, eds. Handbook of European History 1400-1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance & Reformation (E.J. Brill, 1995), pp. 93–125.
- Ronald G. Witt, In the Footsteps of the Ancients: The Origins of Humanism from Lovato to Bruni, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, (ed. Heiko A. Oberman, E.J. Brill, 2000)
- Ronald G. Witt, Italian Humanism and Medieval Rhetoric, (Ashgate Variorum, 2002)
- Harald Braun, "In Defense of Humanist Aesthetics: Ronald G. Witt's Study of Early Italian Humanism", (H-Net Reviews, March 2003)
- Ronald G. Witt, The Two Latin Cultures and the Foundation of Renaissance Humanism in Medieval Italy (Cambridge Un. Press, March 2012)
- John Winter Jones, trans.,Travelers in Disguise: Narratives of Eastern Travel by Poggio Bracciolini and Ludovico de Varthema, (Harvard Un. Press, 1963), intr. by Lincoln Davis Hammond.
- John W. Oppel, The moral basis of Renaissance politics : a study of the humanistic political and social philosophy of Poggio Bracciolini, 1380-1459 (Ph.D. thesis, Princeton Un., 1972)
- Nancy S. Struever, The Language of history in the Renaissance : rhetoric and historical consciousness in Florentine Humanism (Princeton Un. Press, 1970)
- A. C. de la Mare, The handwriting of Italian humanists / Vol. I, fasc. 1, Francesco Petrarca, Giovanni Boccaccio, Coluccio Salutati, Niccolò Niccoli, Poggio Bracciolini, Bartolomeo Aragazzi of Montepulciano, Sozomeno of Pistoia, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci (Oxford University Press, 1973)
- Louis Paret, The annals of Poggio Bracciolini and other forgeries, (Augustin S.A., 1992)
- John Wilson Ross, Tacitus and Bracciolini. The Annals forged in the XVth century, (Diprose & Bateman, 1878)
- Anthony Grafton, Commerce with the Classics: Ancient Books and Renaissance Readers, (Un. of Michigan Press, 1997)
- Anthony Grafton, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship, (Princeton Un. Press, 1990)
- The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, (W.W. Norton, 2011). Poggio's discovery of Lucretius's De rerum natura.
- Douglas Biow, Doctors, Ambassadors, Secretaries: Humanism and Professions in Renaissance Italy (Un. of Chicago Press, 2002)A
- L.D. Reynolds & N.G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford Un. Press, 1968)
- Brian Richardson, Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy, (Cambridge Un. Press, 1999)
- Ann Proulx Lang, Poggio Bracciolini's De Avaritia - A Study in 15th-century Florentine Attitudes Toward Avarice and Usury (Thesis, M.A., Sir George Williams Un., Montreal, 1973). Examination of the economic aspects of Poggio's Florentine life.
- Remgio Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici latini e greci ne' secoli 14 e 15, Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1914. Discoveries of Latin and Greek codices in the 14th and 15th centuries.
External links
- Media related to Poggio Bracciolini at Wikimedia Commons