"... fictional dialogue is a remarkable text, an idealized projection of cultural life at a high-water mark in Western history." [xxiiii]
And, "... contributing to an important humanistic topic of ... the debate on true nobility: was "nobility" a characteristic that was inherited, or could it be earned by meritorious acts that displayed noble values?" [xvii]The author Filelfo was almost a kind of exile himself. He still has a long standing bad reputation of being greedy, lustful and vain but could read ancient Greek as well as any humanist and had lived in and gotten to know most of the important cities across Italy. Learned as well as travelled, he had argued with and studied under many of the great thinkers and doers of the Italian Renaissance. So it is and, it seems almost apt that such a fictional dialogue among some of these people answering the question, 'What to do about Exile', should appear in those days, especially when written by one who might see himself in such a circumstance. Already in reading the barest beginnings of this book I wonder, if there had not been this book, then there would still be a greater need for it.
The town these people spoke about concerning exile was Florence. At the time non-noble families had begun ruling even prominent cities, and at that time she was ruled by those forces led and influenced by Cosimo de' Medici. Writing a dozen or more years after the events of Cosimo's grand return to Florence in 1434, Filelfo thereafter found himself outside of Florence having left for Siena, and then again, looking for a patron or, more patrons, he'd at last found one in the last Visconti to rule Milan.
Written likely in the late 1440's and among those in the court around Milan, Filelfo dedicated the work to a Milanese financer Vitaliano Borromeo. The text seems to not be completed at three books, as there are textual refernces to a fourth book. But as it stands, in this fine current translation for English, with Filelfo's latin text lain aside it, perhaps Francesco Filelfo and his world may come alive again for some. When Duke Visconti died, Filelfo turned his attentions at last to Francesco Sforza, another 'new man'.
Another question that Renaissance humanists tried to reconcile was in finding the right balance for Franciscan and other austere Observant Orders and their spiritual desires for a specific form of poverty (not 'owning' land and property), while simultaneously living in the middle of thriving urban living situations. The complications arising from such disorder brought forth many ruptures in civic order not just across Italy, but in time, the whole of Europe. These sorts of issues created other issues as various solutions were attempted and failed. The point here is that the idea of wealth in a church and wealth in society, like the banking families had, were different things and effected society in different ways. One seemingly leading to the other.
E.g., from the introduction again:
"In such communities the accumulation of wealth was often rapid, and the patronage of social elites depended on the large fortunes, often from banking, of families like the Medici and the Strozzi. It was these large fortunes that enabled a remarkable improvement in the quality of life for members of the elite and contributed to the enormous cultural achievements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries." [xx]
Here, Filelfo has Leonardo Bruni once a teacher of Filelfo join the stage along with Poggio Bracciolini and Palla Strozzi and Francesco Soderini and they talk about economics as it relates to exile. Bruni is there to 'show his disgust at the way the Medici use their money for political ends.' While Bruni thought himself that 'wealth was acceptable to virtue' this virtue then depended on how the wealth was used. But then, this shows how Filelfo himself contrasts Bruni's notion, critical of Cosimo, with the more effective and potentially generous patron, Vitaliano Borromeo. To point this out isn't very flattering for Filelfo but speaks of the necessities of his own milieu in finding someone to pay him for his work. [xxi]
Despite his reputation or the exigencies of work in those days Filelfo was an interesting guy in interesting times. He outlived many who had crossed paths with him. Far from a monolithic sermonizer he collected all manner of interesting topics simply looking at what he had found the ancients thought about exile. There should be lots of these here.
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Filelfo, Francesco: On Exile, Edited by Jeroen de Keyser and translated by W. Scott Blanchard, for The I Tatti Renaissance Library (ITRI); by The President and Fellows of Harvard College, USA 2013
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