History and theory: the paradox in Francesco Patrizi

ABSTRACT

Patrizi's Ten Dialogues on History bring the Renaissance humanist discourse on the meaning of history to a new level. First, he emphasizes narrativity as the fundamental structure of history. Then he asks for the essence of history, which hinges on the creativity of the narrator, who organizes the facts to be told. With a focus on the Third Dialogue, we see that, for Patrizi, history is elapsing time preserved beyond time and human knowledge enacted in time or reenacted in events. A theory of history shows that history is the connection between contingency and truth.

KEYWORDS:

• Francesco Patrizi
• history
• theory and philosophy of history
• Renaissance philosophy
• (Neo)Platonism

Notes on contributor

Paul Richard Blum is T.J. Higgins, S.J., Chair in Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore. He specializes in the history of Renaissance and early modern philosophy. His most recent book is Nicholas of Cusa on Peace, Religion, and Wisdom in Renaissance Context (2018).

Notes

1 Dedicatory letter, in Wolf, Artis Historicae Penvs, fol. 2r: “ϕιλολογία historica non tantum mirabili voluptate animos perfundit, sed etiam incredibiles maximorum emolumentorum fructus ad omnia humana negocia suppeditat … ”. The letter is dated 1576, but it appears only in this 1579 print. In 1576, Patrizi's text was published in a shorter version of this collection under the (misleading) title Io. Bodini Methodus historica, duodecim eiusdem argumenti scriptorum, tam veterum quam recentiorum, commentariis adaucta (Bodin, Methodus) without the name or the preface of Wolf. On Patrizi and humanist theory of history see Šolcova, “Philosophical Perspective of Humanist Discourse on History”.

2 Kessler, Theoretiker humanistischer Geschichtsschreibung, 11–6. The Patrizi text will be quoted from this anthology, a collection of reprints, with the original pagination. On narrativism cf. the anthology Burns and Rayment-Pickard, Philosophies of History, 274–300, with excerpts from Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Hayden White and Paul Ricoeur.

3 Cf., with the relevant literature: Couzinet, “History and Philosophy”.

4 Patrizi, Della historia, I, 1v: “[historia] sia quasi una narratione”; 2r: “Delle cose fatte da gli huomini” (the context distinguishes acts from artifacts); 4v: “ella sia una certa cosa, dove bisogni guardare, il principio, l’ordine, il fine, le cose da dire, et quelle da tacere, et l’altre da sfuggire et altre da distendere”. All translations are mine, unless states otherwise.

5 Patrizi, Della historia, X, 61v: “[ … ] se non confuse le [attioni] vorrem narrare, l’ordine che lor daremo, sarà di nostro arbitrio. [ … ] Ma queste attioni, o parti, che noi al presente discorriamo, non hanno tra loro natural distintion di precedenza”.

6 Patrizi, Della historia, X, 62v–63r: “Il tempo solo non ci da chiarezza del narramento. [ … ] Alla ventura [ … ] così, che l’una a poco a poco si conduca col narramento ad un termino finito, et quivi farla aspettare tanto, che anco l’altra vi ci arrive”. On time, cf. Blum, “Francesco Patrizi in the ‘Time-Sack’.”

7 On Paolo Contarini (1529–1585), see Cozzi, “Contarini, Paolo”. Giorgio Contarini was Count of Jaffa (Ioppe; now Tel Aviv-Yafo): Iustinianus,, 222.

8 Patrizi, Della historia, III, fol. 12r–v.

9 Patrizi, Della historia, III, fol. 13r: “I libri dell’anima, hanno i lor caratteri di rilievo; et si possono scorzare di parte in parte; et facendosene in certo modo anatomia, penetrare infino all’intima midolla loro”.

10 Patrizi, Della historia, III, 13v: “[ … ] che l’historico sia del passato, come il Profeta del futuro”.

11 Plato, Timaeus, 21a–5, in Marsilio Ficino's translation.

12 Patrizi, Della historia, III, 17v.

13 Cf. Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 1.67, who conflated Adam's and Eve's third son Seth with the Egyptian king Sesostris; there the two columns.

14 Patrizi, Della historia, III, 18r.

15 Obviously alluding to hieroglyphs.

16 Patrizi, Della historia, III, 18r.

17 Patrizi, Della historia, III, 18v.

18 Patrizi, Della historia, III, 19f: “[ … ] che questi memoriali sieno, forse commentari? [ … ] che anco questi sono historie”.

Additional information

Funding

This study is a result of research funded by the Czech Science Foundation as the project GA ČR 14-37038G, “Between Renaissance and Baroque: Philosophy and Knowledge in the Czech Lands within the Wider European Context”.