Leonardo Bruni and the Poetics of Sovereignty

Abstract

Leonardo Bruni’s well-known oration, the Laudatio Florentinae urbis, has long stood at the center of discussions on the emergence of the modern republican state. Recent historiographical trends have emphasized the degree to which Bruni’s oration represents a propagandistic attempt both to portray Florence as a territorial power of Northern Italy keen to impose its sovereign authority on neighboring polities and as a republic intent on fashioning an image of itself as a popular sovereignty. It is in this second element of Bruni’s oration that we can discover his rhetorical purposes: he needed to give a distorted image of Florence as enjoying “popular” rule precisely because Florence was in fact moving in the opposite direction towards a more oligarchic concentration of political authority. The essay investigates the changes contemplated in revisions to Florence’s juridical codes at precisely the time of the oration’s composition, suggesting that when these two sources are juxtaposed, Bruni’s oration appears as a strongly ideological literary work the rhetorical gestures of which camouflage the actual historical and legal developments of Florence’s political life in the early fifteenth century.

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank the organizers of the conference, Gur Zak, Raz Chen-Morris, and Hanan Yoran, for inviting me to Tel-Aviv University, and I would also like to thank the Minerva foundation for its financial support of this scholarly initiative.

Notes

1. The ambiguity is examined carefully by Hanan Yoran in “Florentine Civic Humanism and the Emergence of Modern Ideology,” History and Theory 46 (2007): 326–44, where he argues that a specifically modern form of ideology characterized by the concealment of structures of domination and power lay behind Florentine political practices in this period.

2. Eric Santner, The Royal Remains: The People’s Two Bodies and the Endgames of Sovereignty (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011). The corpus mysticum was a juridical concept rooted in Pauline theology, but it should be noted that late medieval philosophers like Ockham had already critiqued the concept of an imaginary (fictus) person; see Jeannine Quillet, “Community, Counsel and Representation,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c.350–c.1450, ed. J. H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 520–72.

3. Mary Douglas, How Institutions Think (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986).

4. Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception, trans. Kevin Attell (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 85.

5. Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny, rev. ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966); Jerrold Seigel, “‘Civic Humanism’ or Ciceronian Rhetoric? The Culture of Petrarch and Bruni,” Past and Present 34 (1966): 3–48; Riccardo Fubini, Italia Quattrocentesca: Politica e diplomazia nell’età di Lorenzo il Magnifico (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1984), 19–86; idem, Quattrocento fiorentino: politica, diplomazia, cultura (Pisa: Pacini, 1986), 11–98. Many of the essays in James Hankins, ed., Renaissance Civic Humanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), and especially that of the editor (“Rhetoric, history, and ideology: The civic panegyrics of Leonardo Bruni,” 143-178), successfully critique Baron’s thesis. Baron, of course, was also traumatized by the rise of Nazism in Europe prior to his emigration to the United States in 1938.

6. Riccardo Fubini, “La rivendicazione di Firenze della sovranità statale e il contributo delle ‘Historiae’ di Bruni,” in Leonardo Bruni cancelliere della reppublica di Firenze, ed. Paolo Viti (Florence: Olschki, 1990), 29–62; the citation from the letter to Niccoli can be found in Leonardo Bruni, Epistolarum libri VIII, ed. L. Mehus (Florence, 1741), 2.29 (“Nos autem hodie quam in angusto versamur?”).

7. In addition to the studies of Fubini, see Andrea Zorzi, “La Formazione e il governo del dominio territoriale fiorentino: pratiche, uffici, ‘costituzione materiale’,” in Lo stato territoriale fiorentino (secoli XIV–XV): ricerche, linguaggi, confronti, ed. Andrea Zorzi and William J. Connell (Pisa: Pacini, 2002), 189–221.

8. Fubini, “La rivendicazione.”

9. For background on the virtually obsolescent legitimation Florentine legal institutions possessed by virtue of their status as vassals of the Holy Roman Empire, see Lauro Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968), 119–29.

10. Fubini, Quattrocento fiorentino, 43f., 67.

11. Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft; here we can detect some of Weber’s “rationalization” in the sense of an expanded bureaucratic regimen, but also in the larger sense of a greater “modern” need to base decisions on legal argumentation (however specious or “ungrounded” such legal argument may have ultimately been).

12. John Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280–1400 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1982).

13. Lorenzo Tanzini, Statuti e legislazione a Firenze dal 1355 al 1415: lo statuto cittadino del 1409 (Florence: Olschski, 2004); see also his earlier “Tradizione e innovazione nella rubrica De origine iuris dello statuto fiorentino del 1409,” Archivio storico italiano 159 (2001): 765–96. The first reference to the document that established that the regulations concerning elections, primarily contained in the fifth book of the new Statuti, were rejected only two years after the adoption of the legislation in 1415 is to be found in Fubini, Quattrocento fiorentino, 65. This important detail was not known by earlier scholars such as Martines and Najemy, though it only serves to demonstrate the persistence—despite the ultimate failure—of anti-oligarchic sentiment, a final recrudescence of “popular” notions of sovereignty. For Bruni’s oligarchic orientation, which would eventuate in his support of the Medici regime from 1434 onwards, see Gary Ianziti, “Bruni, the Medici, and the Florentine Histories,” Journal of the History of Ideas 61 (2000): 39–58, now included in idem, Writing from History: Leonardo Bruni and the Uses of the Past (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012). For a broader view of oligarchic tendencies on the Italian peninsula, see Christine Shaw, Popular Government and Oligarchy in Renaissance Italy (Leiden: Brill, 2006); for the electoral struggles during the period when Bruni composed the Oratio, see in addition to Najemy’s work Ronald Witt, “Florentine Politics and the Ruling Class, 1382–1407,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (1976): 243–67, and Dale Kent, “The Florentine Reggimento in the Fifteenth Century,” Renaissance Quarterly 28 (1975): 575–638.

14. For the date of Bruni’s Laudatio, see James Hankins, “The Chronology of Leonardo Bruni's Later Works (1437–1443),” Studi medievali e umanistici 6 (2007), accessed online at: http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:2961721. For the text of the Laudatio, I have relied on Hans Baron, “Leonardo Bruni’s Laudatio Urbis Florentinae,” in From Petrarch to Bruni: Studies in Humanistic and Political Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 232–63. A complete translation can be found in Ronald Witt and Benjamin Kohl, The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 135–75, but see below for comments on some of the phrasings of the translator, Benjamin Kohl. Subsequent page references are to these two editions.

15. Bruni’s opening use of the so-called “inexpressibility” topos is more significant than is immediately apparent when we consider that Florence’s magnitudo, which Bruni cannot hope to express and to which his own meager capacity to praise “should not be compared” (nullo modo... sit comparandum, 233) echoes the politico-juridical concept that lies behind the notion of sovereignty: sovereign nations or cities have none “superior to them” and are therefore, senso strictu, incomparable. See Martines, Lawyers and Statecraft, 412ff. for the legal definition of a city-state as a universitas superiores non recognescens.

16. Bruni’s elaborate spatial and topographical analogies for the city focus almost obsessively on circularity, by which he no doubt meant to evoke the visual image of the Albizzi coat of arms that contains two concentric circles surrounding a central node or boss (Bruni’s twice-mentioned “umbelicus”). This connection has, to the best of my knowledge, not been noticed by historians: “Just as on a round shield in which rings enclose other rings, the innermost ring comes to an end in the central knob that is the middle of the entire shield. In the same way here we see the regions lying like rings surrounding and enclosing one another. Florence is surely the first of these, similar to the central knob, the center of the whole orbit. The city itself is ringed by walls and suburbs. Around the suburbs, in turn, lies a ring of country houses, and around them a circle of towns. The whole outermost region is enclosed in a still larger orbit and circle. But between the towns there are castles, and citadels that are the safest of refuges for the peasants, with their towers reaching to the sky” (144f.; translation modified).

17. As Shaw notes in Popular Government, the category of the magnati was flexible and was often simply a political category rather than a social or economic one (152f.). By the middle of the fifteenth century the term had become irrelevant, despite its continued presence in the 1415 Statuta discussed below. For background, see Carol Lansing, The Florentine Magnates: Lineage and Faction in a Medieval Commune (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

18. Bruni’s more genuine beliefs are apparent in the following statement from the History of the Florentine People, ed. and trans. James Hankins (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 3.9, reflecting on the Ciompi revolt: “This state of affairs can stand as an eternal example and warning for the city’s leading citizens that they should not allow civil unrest and armed force to come down to the whims of the mob. For it cannot be restrained once it begins to snatch the reins and realizes that it is more powerful, being more numerous.” Cited also by Shaw, Popular Government, 167, and Najemy, “Civic Humanism,” 85.

19. The Latin reads as follows: “Magistratibus ergo privati, itemque inferioris gradus homines, parere omnes et obedire coguntur eorumque insignia vereri” (259); Kohl translates: “all conditions of men must submit to the decisions of the magistracies, and they must pay due respect to the symbols of these offices” (169). A more literal translation would be: “So private men, and likewise those of a lower rank, are all forced to submit to and obey the magistrates, and to show respect to their insignia.”

20. Compare Bruni, Laudatio: “Non sunt nova in Florentino populo haec partium studia, nec nuper, ut quidem arbitrantur, incepit: altius haec concertatio suscepta est. Cum nefarii homines, per summum scelus rem publicam adorti, populi Romanam libertatem, splendorem dignitatemque sustulere, tunc hoc ardore incensi, tunc haec concertatio atque haec partium studia a Florentinis suscepta, quas ad hanc diem constantissime retinet. Nec si alio atque alio nomine diversis temporibus hae partes appellatae sunt, ideo tamen diversae fuere. Sed una fuit semper atque eadem causa contra invasores imperii” (ed. Baron, 245) with Kohl: “Now this interest in republicanism [haec partium studia?] is not new to the Florentine people, nor did it begin (as some people think) only a short time since. Rather, this struggle against tyranny was begun a long time ago when certain evil men undertook the worst crime of all–the destruction of the liberty, honor, and dignity of the Roman people. At that time, fired by a desire for freedom, the Florentines adopted their penchant for fighting and their zeal for the republican side [haec partium studia?], and the attitude has persisted down to the present day. If at other times these political factions were called by different names, still they were not really different. From the beginning Florence has always been united in one and the same cause against the invaders of the Roman state” (151f.).

21. Jane Black, “Gli statuti communali e lo stato territoriale Fiorentino: Il contributo dei giuristi,” in Lo stato territoriale fiorentino (secoli XIV–XV): ricerche, linguaggi, confronti, ed. Andrea Zorzi and William J. Connell (Pisa: Pacini, 2002), 23–46; Zorzi, “La Formazione e il governo del dominio territoriale fiorentino: pratiche, uffici, ‘costituzione materiale’.”

22. Stephen DeCaroli, “Boundary Stones: Giorgio Agamben and the Field of Sovereignty,” in Giorgio Agamben: Sovereignty and Life, ed. Matthew Calarco and Stephen DeCaroli (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), 43–69.

23. Leonardo Brunis Rede auf Nanni Strozzi, ed. Susanne Daub (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1996), 286–87: “Our city has a population of citizens that is truly so large that, in addition to the great abundance living just in the city, an almost infinite cohort of citizens is to be observed spread out through the whole globe. ... There is no place so remote, none so unfrequented, in which some Florentine citizen does not dwell.” This is quite similar in its grandiosity to the claim in the Laudatio that Florence is “worthy of attaining dominion and rule over the whole world” (143; my translation).

24. Martines, in Lawyers and Statecraft, 406ff., showed some interest in the category of the bannitus nearly half a century ago, especially in the status of a bannitus who could be killed without penalty. I have benefited from his mention of Nello da San Gimignano, though I suggest that Nello’s legal argumentation may show more sympathy for the bannitus by not equating him completely with an “enemy” (see n. 26).

25. “Quicunque condemnatus fuerit ad mortem occasione rebellionis, turbationis, vel subversionis

status pacifici civitatis Florentiae, seu tractatus facti contra dictum statum, possit in quacumqueparte mundi impune offendi, et occidi” (my emphasis), from the Statuta Populi et Communis Florentia, 1415, 3 vols. (Friburg, 1778–83), 1.363–64. The office and functions of the bannitores are defined at 1.80–82.

26. Nello da San Gimignano, Tractatus de bannitis (Pescia, 1486), appears to have been desirous of defining a status for banniti that did not go quite so far in excluding the civil rights of such persons. In his fourth quaestio, he asks what other sorts of persons the bannitus can be compared to and decides that the bannitus is neither like an enemy of war, nor is he comparable to a deserter on the battlefield (sig. c2).

27. Statuti della Repubblica Fiorentina, vol. 2, Statuto del Podestà dell’anno 132, ed. Giuliano Pinto et al. (Florence: Olschski, 1999), 217: “Et quod exbannitus pro maleficio possit offendi licite et impune et per quemcunque modum et qualitercunque et quocunque placuerit offensori et offendi facienti etiam per assessinos, non obstante predicto capitulo vel alio capitulo constituti: quod si contrarium reperiretur ad hoc, sit cassum et vanum” should be compared with the passage in note 25.

28. Najemy sees the turbulent regimes of 1378–82 as the final expression of a popular political will that would become ever more attenuated in the following decades (Corporatism and Consensus, 216–62).

29. Statuto del Podestà, 140: “Verum si quis abduxerit vel violenter ceperit aliquem puerum vel aliquam personam civitatis Florentiae vel districtus seu aliunde in civitate Florentiae vel districtu causa extorquendi pecuniam, vel ad predictum maleficium commictendum eum assotiaverit, vel predicta vel aliquod predictorum commicti fecerit, puniatur in libris duobus milibus f. p. [i.e., 2,000 florins penalty]. Et si dictam condempnationem non solverit infra decem dies post condempnationem factam … furcis per gulam appendatur, taliter quod moriatur” (my emphasis).

30. Statuta Populi, 1.278: “Quicumque praesumpserit in civitate, comitatu, vel districtu Florentiae, vel alibi ubicunque facere aliquam invitatam, seu congregationem gentium, conventiculam, conspirationem, vel posturam pro violatione, vel subversione pacifici status populi, et communis Florentiae, vel ordinamentorum iustitiae dicti populi, vel contra libertatem ipsius, debeat ultoribus ferris, seu tanaliis in eius corpore lacerari, seu attanaliari, vulgariter intellecto vocabulo, et demum suspendi cum catena nullatenus deponendus sed super furcis continuo stare debeat.” In addition to the significance that I attach to the more political nature of crimes to be punished with the “forks,” it is significant that here an unusual term from the volgare has been inserted (attanaliari [“to be pincered”]; cp. modern Italian tanaglia), which suggests that this gruesome equipment held a certain notoriety in the 1415 timeframe that it may not have held earlier; or it is possible that the iron pincers may not have been used in the earlier period, since the “forks” were part of the platform upon which the victim was strung, while the pincers served to pierce the skin and thereby provide a place on the body by which it could be suspended on the “forks.”

31. For a list of those exiled, see the appendix in Dale Kent, The Rise of the Medici: Faction in Florence, 1426–1434 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).

32. Aristotle, The Politics, trans. Carnes Lord (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 1284a16–17.

33. Palla Strozzi’s opinions, as reported in the biography of Angelo Fabroni, Pallantis Stroctii Vita (Parma, 1802), are in accord with what can be read in Vespasiano da Bisticci. Fabroni depicts Palla as desirous of distancing himself from Rinaldo degli Albizzi; Palla would have wished to disassociate himself from any party that would stir up contention in Florence (25). Palla’s response to Rinaldo during the uprising indicated that he would, however, take up the cause of defending the city’s liberty and justice, but not any cause rooted in factionalism: “Voce magna, ac sermone patrio respondit [Palla], frustra se sollicitari; esse sibi ferrum animum promptum ad libertatem et aequitatem conservandam, minime vero ad turbas commovendas” (23). This should not be surprising, given that even in “safe exile” Florentine laws governing banniti would not only have put a bounty on his head but would have made him liable to asassination impune for conspiring with others, as is clear from the statutes quoted above.