The Poeta-Theologus from Mussato to Landino

Abstract

Fundamental to the modern conception of historical perspective was the position that nature had its own integrity and that a common human nature underlay human action in history. The first tenet was an achievement of the Scholastics, the second of Italian humanists of the fourteenth century. In order to justify the reading of ancient pagan texts an early humanist Albertino Mussato (1261–1329) had resorted to the late ancient and medieval tradition that the pagan poets had been divinely inspired to predict the coming of Christ and a number of other revealed truths. Subsequently, however, Petrarch (1304–74), Boccaccio (1310–75), and Salutati (1332–1406) argued that if poetic genius was a divine gift to individuals, poetic creation was a product of human effort. The consequent desanctification of the ancient writers allowed them to be approached as historical human beings. Nevertheless, the new enthusiasm for Plato beginning with Bruni (1370–1444) initiated a retreat from this position and a return to the medieval confusion between the world of grace and the world of nature. By the second half of the fifteenth century, Plato’s “divine madness of the poets” was being interpreted to mean that the ancient poets had been divinely inspired to utter Christian truths.

The present article is an expansion of my earlier article, “Coluccio Salutati and the Conception of the Poeta theologus in the Fourteenth Century,” Renaissance Quarterly 30 (1977): 538–63.

Notes

1. Dante, “De monarchia,” in De vulgari eloquentia. Monarchia, ed. Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo and Bruno Nardi, in Opere minori, vol. 3.1 (Milan: Ricciardi, 1995), 3.xv, 7–8 and 10.

2. See my “Coluccio Salutati and the Conception of the Poeta theologus in the Fourteenth Century,” Renaissance Quarterly 30 (1977): 538–63.

3. Aristotle, Metaphysics, in Works of Aristotle, trans. W. D. Ross, vol. 8 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), 982b; Ernst R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 204, sees Plato’s attack on Homer in the Republic as the “culmination” of the quarrel.

4. August Buck, “Italienische Dichtungslehren vom Mittelalter bis zum Ausgang der Renaissance,” Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 94 (1952): 67.

5. Thomas’s comment is found in Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, 1, prol. a.5, ad 3, Opera omnia, 7 (Paris, 1873). On Abelard and Innocent, see Ferdinand Piper, “Virgilius als Theolog und Prophet des Heidenthums in der Kirche,” Evangelischer Kalender 13 (1862): 66–67 and 70.

6. A recent edition of the poems is published in Enzo Cecchini, “Le epistole metriche del Mussato sulla poesia,” in Tradizione classica e letteratura umanistica. Per Alessandro Perosa, ed. Roberto Cardini et al., 2 vols. (Rome: Bulzoni, 1985), 95–119; hereafter abbreviated as Epist.

7. Mussato, Epist. 2.44–48, 108. Unless otherwise indicated the translations hereafter are mine.

8. Quoted by Giovannino from an earlier letter of Mussato (now lost) sent to him: Albertini Mussati Historia Augusta Henrici VII, Caesaris et alia quae extant opera, ed. Lorenzo Pignorio et alii (Venice, 1636), 71.

9. Mussato, Epist. 3.44–50.111.

10. See my “In the Footsteps of the Ancients”: The Origins of Italian Humanism from Lovato to Bruni (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 159–61.

11. Giuseppe Billanovich, Petrarca letterato. Vol. 1, Lo scrittoio del Petrarca (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1947; rpt., 1995), 69, 102, and 122, n. 1. See as well his “Pietro Piccolo da Monteforte tra il Petrarca e il Boccacio,” Medioevo e Rinascimento. Studi in onore di Bruno Nardi (Florence: Sansoni, 1955), 19 and 22.

12. C. Godi, “La Collatio laureationis del Petrarca nelle due redazioni,” Studi petrarcheschi, n.s. 5 (1988): 31.

13. Petrarch, Le familiari=Familiarum rerum libri, trans. and ed. Ugo Dotti, 5 vols. (Racconigi: Aragno, 2004–2009), 3.1408. He also distinguishes in the same passage between Scripture and ancient poetry: “sed subjectum alium. Quis negat? Illic de Deo deque divinis, hic de diis hominbusque tractatur.”

14. Il “De otio religioso” di Francesco Petrarca, ed. Giuseppe Rotondo, Studi e testi 195 (Cittá del Vaticano, 1958): 29. However, the “religiosus et pius lector” can refer the passage to Christ if he wishes. Vladimiro Zabughin, Vergilio nel Rinascimento italiano di Dante a Torquato Tasso; fortuna-studi-imitazioni-traduzione e parodie-icongrafia, 2 vols. (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1921–23), 1.27, characterizes the attitude as “timida, conciliante, onde l’interpretazione christiana della quarta Ecloga, pur non ammessa scientificamente rimane suggerita quale pia anagoge al ‘religioso lettore.” For Petrarch’s rejection of Vergil as a prophet, also see Pierre de Nolhac, Pétrarque et l’humanisme, 2 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1907), 1.128; and his “Virgile chez Pétrarque,” in Virgilio nel Medio Evo, Studi medievali, n.s. 5 (1932): 220–21.

Charles Trinkaus, however, interprets Petrarch as believing that the poets knew divinely inspired truth: In Our Image and Likeness, 2 vols. (London: Constable, 1971), 692–93. He bases this judgment on a passage in Petrarch’s Inv. 3 (Invettive 71–72: “Primos nempe theologos apud gentes fuisse poetas et philosophorum maximi testantur, et sanctorum confirmat autoritas, et ipsum, si nescis, poete nomen indicat. In quibus maxime nobilitatus Orpheus, cuius decimoctavo civitatis eterne libro Augustinus meminit. ‘At nequiverunt quo destinaverant pervenire,’ dicet aliquis. Fatebor. Nam perfecta cognitio veri Dei, non humani studii, sed celestis est gratie. Laudandus tamen animus studiosissimorum hominum, qui certe quibus poterant viis ad optatam veri celsitudinem anhelabant, adeo ut ipsos quoque philosophos in hac tanta et tam necessaria inquisitione precederent. Credibile est etiam hos ardentissimos inquisitores veri ad id saltem pervenisse, quo humano perveniri poterat ingenio, ut—secundum illud Apostoli supra relatum—per ea que facta sunt, invisibilibus intellectis atque conspectis, prime cause et unius Dei quemcunque notitiam sortirentur; atque ita deinceps omnibus modis id egisse, ut—quod publice non audebant, eo quod nondum viva veritas terris illuxerat—clam suaderent falsos deos esse, quos illusa plebs coleret.” Trinkaus in In Our Image and Likeness interprets this passage as follows: “Thus the affirmation of the existence of a secret tradition differing from the manifest meaning of their writings, in which the divine truth was known by inspired ancient pagan bards—poets and theologians, was clearly made by Petrarch. It is this theory of the ancient theologia poetica which is again taken up by the Platonists of the late Quattrocento as an essential part of their conception of a theologia platonica” (693). By contrast, I interpret this passage as specifically denying divine inspiration and maintaining that the poets’ achievement of truth was totally their own.

Similarly, I see no justification for August Buck’s position (Italienische Dichtungslehren, 87), that not only Petrarch but also Boccaccio and Salutati believed the ancient poets inspired “von einem göttlichen Hauch.”

15. Petrarch, Fam. 5.3576: “Quantum vero tua somnia distent.”

16. Petrarch, Seniles 4.5; Opera quae extant (Basel, 1581), 787: “mente inferos adeat, ubi fictionum nullus aut modus aut numerus.”

17. Petrarch, Fam. 4.2468.

18. Boccaccio, Genealogie deorum gentilium libri, ed. Vincenzo Romano, Scrittori d’Italia, vols. 200–201 (Bari: Laterza, 1951), 2.752–53, 703, 768.

19. Boccaccio, Genealogie deorum gentilium libri, 2.704–5. Boccaccio defines poetry as follows (ibid., 2.699: “Poesis enim, quam negligentes abiciunt et ignari, est fervor quidam exquisite inveniendi atque dicendi, seu scribendi, quo inveneris. Qui, ex sinu dei procedens paucis mentibus, ut arbitror, in creatione conceditur, ex quo, quoniam mirabilis sit, rarissimi semper fuere poete.” Francesco Tateo, ‘Retorica’ e ‘Poetica’ fra Medioevo e Rinascimento (Bari: Adriatica Editrice, 1960), 72–73, referring to Boccaccio’s definition of poetry, comments: “Così è signicativo il passaggio da una considerazione teologica del fervor (il furore, l’ispirazione divina), che pur traspare in queste pagine, ad una considerazione di esso meno determinata (un generico impulso, naturale, più che divino), che spinge l’uomo alla poesia, come ad ogni impegnata occupazione della sua anima.”

20. Salutati, Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, ed. Francesco Novati, in Fonti per la storia d’Italia, vols. 15–18 (Rome: Tipografi del Senato, 1891–1911), 1.300.

21. Salutati, Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, 1.302.

22. Salutati, Epistolario di Coluccio Salutat, 1.302, 303.

23. Salutati, “Prima edition,” in De laboribus Herculis, ed. Berthold L. Ullman, 2 vols. (Zurich: Turici in aedibus Thesauri Mundi, 1951), 2.585–636.

24. In 1405 Salutati mentioned that only Book 2 had been completed but even it was not yet corrected, while the other three books remained unfinished: Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, 4.76.

25. Salutati, Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, 2.461: “Quod si verum est infernum esse, quod divina testantur eloquia, certum esse potest divino quodam spiritu poetas inflatos non a se solummodo repperisse fingendo sed in hanc veritatem inspiratione divini numinis et vere germaneque veritatis incidisse. Denique sive poete finxerint sive, quod vero similius esse crediderim, tanquam verum aliquod expresserint inferos esse et ad aliud hanc ordinaverint veritatem, certum est divini Christianique dogmatis intentionem esse quod infernus sit.”

26. Salutati, Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, 3.226, 3.231. The whole first passage reads: et quia tam arduam rem eloqui, qui sensum omnem transcendebat, ut pure intelligerentur, non poterant, figuras quasdam excogitaverunt, quibus illud summe divinitatis arcanum, quod ratione vel potius ante Dei revelationem extimatione perceperant, celebrarent atque referrent, et quanto sublimius loquendi genus etiam excultorum hominum ingenia reperire poterunt, sive natura sive arte sive quodam usu et exercitatione dicendi, huic mysterio, quo maior adderetur auctoritas, dicaverunt” (3.231).

27. Salutati, Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, 3.292. Buck, Italienische Dichtungslehren, 87, appears to me to distort Salutati’s meaning here when he explicates the passage as meaning “Die allegorische Interpretation wird dann auch wieder mit der theologischen Poetik in Verbindung gebracht: jede Dichtung ist letzten Endes göttlichen Ursprungs: auch aus heidnischen Dichtern, die den christlichen Gott nicht kannten, leuchtet oft der Strahl der göttlichen Wahrheit.”

28. Salutati’s three letters to Giovanni are found in Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, 3.221–31 (ca. 1389); 539–43 (1398); and 4.170–205 (1404/05).

29. Salutati, Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, 4.199–200.

30. Salutati, Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, 4.163–64.

31. Igino Taù, “Il ‘Contra oblucatores et detractores poetarum’ di Francesco da Fiano. Con appendice di documenti biografici,” Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà 4 (1965): 295–331, publishes the work. For the background of the work, see ibid., 262–64. For the date, see 265. An earlier edition was made M. L. Plaisant, “Un opuscolo inedito di Francesco da Fiano in difesa della poesia,” Rinascimento 26 (1961): 119–62.

32. The work was dedicated to Cosimo Migliorati, Cardinal of Bologna and later Pope Innocent VII (1406), who was regarded as a supporter of humanism.

33. Taù, “Il ‘Contra oblucatores et detractores poetarum’ di Francesco da Fiano,” 301: “Non sunt igitur, pater optime, poetice intelligende fabule prout cortex sonat exterior, quarum si latentem medullam acumine alti velis ingenii perscrutari, invenies poetarum scripturas, modo naturalium rerum, modo laudabilium morum, per quos virtuose vite candores acquirimus, modo egregiarum hystoriarum, quarum exemplis obscena horrere vite et virtutum pulcritudine delectari debere nobis ostenditur, doctrina refertas.”

34. Taù, “Il ‘Contra oblucatores et detractores poetarum’ di Francesco da Fiano,” 315: “Cur non ita prohibent Aristotilem et Platonem esse legendos? Quibus nedum Christum venturum cognoscere, sed illum somniare ab alto negatum est.”

35. “Igitur, si precedens tantorum futurorum temporum longitudo Christi cognitionem abstulit poetis antiquis, an sit equitas, cum apud leges et canones nulla statuatur de futuro delicto punitio, an iniquitas, illos propter futurum peccatum in profundum baratrum opinione sua mersisse, Augustini et Orizenis aliorumque catholicorum exquisitiori iuditio et maturiori equitati relinguo.”

36. Taù, “Il ‘Contra oblucatores et detractores poetarum’ di Francesco da Fiano,” 318, for Petrarch’s influence. Taù’s notes indicate that Francesco’s exposition depended heavily on Boccaccio.

37. Taù, “Il ‘Contra oblucatores et detractores poetarum’ di Francesco da Fiano,” 318–19: “Illorum enim ingeniis quedam lux divinitatis fulsisse videtur, qui, licet ipsam catholicam veritatem, ut Augustinus de Varrone sepe refert, non omnino senserint vel cognoverint vel in ipsam veritatem pedem non fixerint, tamen ipsi veritati proximi accesserunt.”

38. Taù, “Il ‘Contra oblucatores et detractores poetarum’ di Francesco da Fiano,” 316–17,

320, 321.

39. Cited from James Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 72.

40. “Facit homo ex materia quicquid facit. Deus ex nihilo creat. At poeta et si non omnino ex nihilo aliquid praestet, tamen divino furore afflatus ea eleganter in carmine fingit, ut grandia quaedam, et penitus admiranda suis figmentis pene ex nihilo producere videatur. … Secundum vero signum id erit: quod poetae fuore afflati res omni admiratione atque stupore dignas saepe canunt: quas deinde abeute furore vix ipsi intelligunt veluti si non ipsi pronuntiaverint. Sed deus illorum ore prolocutus sit.” Cited from the Landino’s preface to Horace, Opera,cum commentariis Christophori Landini (Venice, 1483), in Loris Petris, “Le Disputationes camaldulenses di Cristoforo Landino,” Lettere italiane 4 (2003): 582, n. 46.

41. “tum maxime excelsa quaedam et in ipso divinitatis fonte recondite promant”: Disputationes camaldulenses, ed. Peter Lohe (Florence: Sansone, 1980), 111. Cited from Mario A. di Cesare, “Cristoforo Landino on the Name and Nature of Poetry: The Critic as Hero,” The Chaucer Review 21 (1986): 169.

42. Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness, 714. Trinkaus’s version of the preface is taken from Cod. Laur. 53, 37. In another preface to a commentary on Virgil, edited by Roberto Cardini, based on Corsini. Rossi 230.36.E.19, presumably written for his lectures in 1462, Landino wavers, however, as to the pagan precedence in theologizing. This preface confidently identifies Mercurius Trismegistus as the Egyptian name for Moses: “Moyses… qui et Aegyptios ab Aethiopibus et ab Aegyptiis Hebraeos liberavit quique cum primus, ut ait E(u)pulemus Gracus scriptor, litteras adinvenisset, ab Agyptiis Mercurius Trimagistus appellatus est.” Cited from the edition of Roberto Cardini, Critica del Landino (Florence: Sansoni, 1973), 317.

We cannot know whether he follows Ficino in his assertion that Mercurius Trismegestis spoke “ut propheta saepenumero loquitur canitque futura. Hic ruinam praevidit priscae religionis, hic ortum novae fidei hic adventum Christi, hic futurum iudicium resurrectionem seculi, beatorum gloriam, supplicia peccatorum”: cited from Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 462, n. 9.

43. Eugenio Garin, L’umanesimo italiano. Filosofia e vita civile nel Rinascimento (Bari: Laterza, 1958), 104: “una sapienza disancorata da ogni legame di spazio e di tempo.”