Leonardo Bruni (or Leonardo Aretino; c. 1370 – March 9, 1444) was an Italian

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

, historian and statesman, often recognized as the most important humanist historian of the early

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

. He has been called the first modern historian. He was the earliest person to write using the three-period view of history:

Antiquity Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to: Historical objects or periods Artifacts *Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures Eras Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, and

Modern Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy ...

. The dates Bruni used to define the periods are not exactly what modern historians use today, but he laid the conceptual groundwork for a tripartite division of history.

Biography

Leonardo Bruni was born in

Arezzo Arezzo ( , , ) , also ; ett, 𐌀𐌓𐌉𐌕𐌉𐌌, Aritim. is a city and '' comune'' in Italy and the capital of the province of the same name located in Tuscany. Arezzo is about southeast of Florence at an elevation of above sea lev ...

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

circa 1370. Bruni was the pupil of political and cultural leader

Coluccio Salutati Coluccio Salutati (16 February 1331 – 4 May 1406) was an Italian humanist and notary, and one of the most important political and cultural leaders of Renaissance Florence; as chancellor of the Republic and its most prominent voice, he was effec ...

, whom he succeeded as

Chancellor of Florence The Chancellor of Florence held the most important position in the bureaucracy of the Florentine Republic. Though the chancellor was not officially a member of the Republic's elected political government, unlike the gonfaloniere or the nine members ...

, and under whose tutelage he developed his ideation of

civic humanism Classical republicanism, also known as civic republicanism or civic humanism, is a form of republicanism developed in the Renaissance inspired by the governmental forms and writings of classical antiquity, especially such classical writers as Ar ...

. He also served as apostolic secretary to four popes (1405–1414). Bruni's years as chancellor, 1410 to 1411 and again from 1427 to his death in 1444, were plagued by warfare. Though he occupied one of the highest political offices, Bruni was relatively powerless, compared to the

Albizzi The Albizzi family () was a Florentine family originally based in Arezzo, who were rivals of the Medici and Alberti families. They were at the centre of Florentine oligarchy from 1382, in the reaction that followed the Ciompi revolt, to the ris ...

and

Medici The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mu ...

families. Historian Arthur Field has identified Bruni as an apparent plotter against

Cosimo de' Medici Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (27 September 1389 – 1 August 1464) was an Italian banker and politician who established the Medici family as effective rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance. His power derived from his wealth ...

in 1437 (see below). Bruni died in 1444 in Florence and was succeeded in office by Carlo Marsuppini.

Significance

Bruni - De primo bello punico, circa 1471 - 2365945

Bruni's most notable work is ''Historiarum Florentini populi libri XII'' (History of the Florentine People, 12 Books), which has been called the first modern history book. While it probably was not Bruni's intention to secularize history, the three period view of history is unquestionably secular and so Bruni has been called the first modern historian. The foundation of Bruni's conception can be found with

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...

, who distinguished the classical period from later cultural decline, or ''tenebrae'' (literally "darkness"). Bruni argued that Italy had revived in recent centuries and could therefore be described as entering a new age. One of Bruni's most famous works is ''New Cicero'', a biography of the Roman statesman Cicero. He was also the author of biographies in Italian of Dante and Petrarch. It was Bruni who used the phrase ''

studia humanitatis The Latin school was the grammar school of 14th- to 19th-century Europe, though the latter term was much more common in England. Emphasis was placed, as the name indicates, on learning to use Latin. The education given at Latin schools gave gre ...

'', meaning the study of human endeavors, as distinct from those of theology and metaphysics, the source of the term

humanists Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

. As a humanist Bruni was essential in translating into Latin many works of Greek philosophy and history, such as

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...

and

Procopius Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gen ...

. Bruni's translations of Aristotle's ''

Politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

'' and ''

Nicomachean Ethics The ''Nicomachean Ethics'' (; ; grc, Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια, ) is Aristotle's best-known work on ethics, the science of the good for human life, which is the goal or end at which all our actions aim. (I§2) The aim of the inquiry is ...

'', as well as the pseudo-Aristotelean ''Economics'', were widely distributed in manuscript and in print. His use of

Aelius Aristides Publius Aelius Aristides Theodorus ( grc-gre, Πόπλιος Αἴλιος Ἀριστείδης Θεόδωρος; 117–181 AD) was a Greek orator and author considered to be a prime example as a member of the Second Sophistic, a group of celebra ...

' '' Panathenicus (Panegyric to Athens)'' to buttress his republican theses in the '' Panegyric to the City of Florence'' (c. 1401) was instrumental in bringing the Greek historian to the attention of Renaissance political philosophers (see Hans Baron's ''The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance'' for details). He also wrote a short treatise in Greek on the Florentine constitution. Bruni was one of the first Humanists to confront Plato's discussion of same-sex relationships. (Reeser) Bruni died in Florence in 1444, and is buried in a wall tomb by

Bernardo Rossellino Bernardo di Matteo del Borra Gamberelli (1409 Settignano – 1464 Florence), better known as Bernardo Rossellino, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and architect, the elder brother of the sculptor Antonio Rossellino. As a member of the secon ...

in the

Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence The (Italian for 'Basilica of the Holy Cross') is the principal Franciscan church in Florence, Italy, and a minor basilica of the Roman Catholic Church. It is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about 800 meters south-east of the Duomo. ...

. Levey, Michael; ''Early Renaissance'',p. 57-9, 1967, Penguin

Bibliography

*Latin text and English translation: ** **

Notes

References

* Baron, Hans. "Leonardo Bruni: 'Professional Rhetorician' or 'Civic Humanist'?." ''Past & present'' 36 (1967): 21-37.
online
*Field, Arthur: "Leonardi Bruni, Florentine traitor? Bruni, the Medici, and an Aretine conspiracy of 1437", ''Renaissance Quarterly'' 51 (1998): 1109-50. * Fryde, Edmund. "The beginnings of Italian humanist historiography: the ‘New Cicero’of Leonardo Bruni." ''English Historical Review'' 95#376 (1980): 533-552. * Hankins, James. "Humanism in the vernacular: the case of Leonardo Bruni." (2006)
online
* Hankins, James. "The" Baron Thesis" after Forty Years and Some Recent Studies of Leonardo Bruni." ''Journal of the History of Ideas'' 56.2 (1995): 309-338
online
*Hankins, James: ''Repertorium Brunianum: a critical guide to the writings of Leonardo Bruni,'' Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo 1997 * Ianziti, Gary. "Writing History in Renaissance Italy: Leonardo Bruni and the Uses of the Past" (2010)
"Leonardo Bruni"
In ''

Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...

'' Online. *McManus, Stuart M., 'Byzantines in the Florentine polis: Ideology, Statecraft and ritual during the Council of Florence', ''The Journal of the Oxford University History Society'', 6 (Michaelmas 2008/Hilary 2009), 1-23 * Reeser, Todd W. Chapter 2 in ''Setting Plato Straight: Translating Ancient Sexuality in the Renaissance'' (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 2016). * Demetrios K. Giannakopoulos, " Renaissance and Political Modernity. Αρετίνου Λεονάρδου ″Περί Πολιτείας Φλορεντίνων″. Ιntroduction-Text -Comments (Herodotos ed. Athens 2018)

External links

Latin texts online

''An vulgus et literati eodem modo per Terentii Tullique tempora Romae locuti sint''''Calphurnia et Gurgulia''''De Bello Gallico Adversus Gothos''
* Digitized from a copy at th
John Adams Library

''De studijs et litteris ad illustem dominam baptistam de malatesta tractatulus. Leipzig 1496.''Epistola ad Baptistam de Malatestis.De interpretatione recta
on

Wikisource Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually re ...

Lewis E 54 De primo bello punico (On the first Punic War) at OPenn

German texts online

De duobus amantibus Guiscardo et Sigismunda.
Ulm, Johann Zainer, ca. 1476-1477. From th
Rare Book and Special Collections Division
at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bruni, Leonardo 1370 births 1444 deaths People from Arezzo Italian Renaissance writers 15th-century Latin writers Italian Renaissance humanists Greek–Latin translators Translation theorists