I admit. I have taken the time to read the fifth part of Burckhardt's famous Civilization of the Renaissance In Italy at least twice in the last few years. But I need to do it again. It's extraordinarily rich. The section is headed Customs and Festivals and our author lays down the basic claim that society gained a great leveling in the period of the renaissance. It affected everything and everybody, some sooner, some later and to greater and lesser degrees. But nobility in increasing numbers of ways, was no longer the prerequisite for positions of power and influence. The fourteen hundreds in particular are full of examples all over Europe. But then, Burckhardt then asks the basic question, what was nobility. Or rather, what did it mean to those in the period of the Italian Renaissance.
Jacob Burckhardt lived, died and taught and wrote in the nineteenth century, in Basel, Switzerland. He attributed
this social leveling as the product of the advance of humanism on the Italian mind and this as an advance in human civilization.
Quickly in this chapter, after mentioning that Aristotle could both justify and condemn nobility and that Dante wanted to separate both the noble idea (nobile) and noble aspects (nobilita) from birth alone. But Burckhardt also says Dante wanted to show a clear relation between this nobility and philosophy as it was expressed in a high culture bound to moral and intellectual 'eminence'. So much for clarity.
Just as quickly, Burckhardt tells us that people in the fifteenth century widely believed that birth was no guarantor or decider of goodness or badness in a man. He mentions Poggio's dialogue On Nobility who Burckhardt says agrees with his characters in the dialogue that there is no nobility but that of personal merit.
Following what Poggio's characters spoke of - based on real people - Burckardt goes on to give large textual examples of what the proponents - of nobility, and it's opposite - have to say, telegraphing what they thought in the fifteenth century in a book published in the mid nineteenth century.
But who was Poggio? What did he know? Why single him out of so many others that might have an idea? I had no idea. So for starters, I looked it up.
The first page of a google search brought up the
beginning of a recent review of a new translation of this fifteenth century dialogue. So with that at least I can deduce that scholars were taking him seriously as some kind of source still today.
It's this third time I am reading this fifth part of Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance In Italy (CotRiI - for short) but this is the first time I actually looked up 'Poggio On Nobility' and I'm impressed by the four million references found in .28 seconds by leGoogle.
But really, what does it mean? Ah yes! Who cares what all those old dead white men said a hundred or especially hundreds of years ago?
It turns out they seem to be accurate about each other and about their conditions, their societies, their ideas. As far as we can tell. And it's hard to tell that sometimes even about our own times in our own times. But we can at least recognize that we no longer have nobility anymore as arbiters, deciders, despots, rulers, in most places. And that is a very different picture compared with that of the fifteenth century of Italy. Simply put, if enough people 'believe' or share a common understanding and that simple understanding is communicated and shared and it spreads, then those ideas will prevail and take root and in time, hold sway. There will be battles and advances and retreats and surrenders and victories and losses, but if people believe it and continue to talk and spread the word - whatever it is - eventually it will take hold. And these ideas stretch across centuries. Some good, some necessarily bad for some, all of them in some stage of advancement or retreat in the political realms, somewhere. This is one of the reasons Burckhardt is so revered in history even today. He can talk credibly about these really big ideas that stretch across centuries and his findings still are shown as accurate 115 years after his death.
But why nobility again? For Burckhardt it was because one of his big theories was that the ideas of the renaissance came up with and propelled, gave shape to this very special 'social leveler' among peoples. That this age that has followed has enabled the advancement of peoples by the path, the journey offered through their own merit and not beholden to birth-class or present position in society at large. By implication, the idea of the modern 'pursuit of happiness' has certain preconditions. One of them is that one's birth does not determine the merit or nobility of a person.
But what about Poggio? What about his credentials? Why should he be trusted with having accurate information about his time? Or be able to make sound judgments and think himself so mighty as to be able to write a dialogue about Nobility?
I couldn't find a copy of Poggio's text in english. It has to be purchased. But here is
his Facetiae, I believe.
He was a secretary, a notary first, then what was called an
amanuensis to a cardinal, then the same for a pope. For five popes. He did that - secretary for the pope - for nearly fifty years, from 1404 - 1452.
At an advanced age he was selected as official
historographer for Florence in 1453. He was friends with Cosimo de'Medici and Donatello. So he knew those people and described talks he would have with them or other famous people who were not themselves of noble birth. Just successful. Also, although he worked for the church he was not part of it. The technical term was that he continued to stay as a layperson and not become part of the clergy. He helped his friend Niccolo Nicoli produce what would become the Roman typeset. He sold a manuscript of Livy that afforded him a villa in Val d'Arno SE of Florence. Something
like this perhaps.
Anyway, as a secretary Poggio di Duccio was called on to do a number of things besides just being a secretary and researcher of ancient libraries.
In 1837, one William Shepherd had his Life of Poggio published in London. Mr Shepherd gave his own reasons for studying Poggio and even improving on them in multiple editions and explains them and his methodology in clear terms that a modern scholar would recognize and applaud. I'll talk about that some other time as Edwardian scholarship can be delightful. But leaving Shepherd's methodology aside for a moment, let's just look at one story of Poggio from Shepherd's 19th century history.
"The friars whom Poggio satirizes with such severity in his dialogue on Avarice, were a branch of the order of Franciscans, who on account of the extraordinary strictness with which they professed to exercise their conventual discipline, were distinguished by the title of Fratres Observantiae. The founder of this new subdivision of the ecclesiastical order was ... Bernardino, of Siena, who appears by the testimony of Poggia to have been a man of great virtue and of considerable talents. Several of his disciples, however, who were not endued either with his good principles or his abilities, emulous of the reputation which he had acquired by preaching, began also to harangue the people from the pulpit.
Of these self-constituted instructors Poggio has drawn the following striking picture. "Inflated by the pretended inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they expound the sacred scriptures to the populace with such gross ignorance, that nothing can exceed their folly. I have often gone to hear them for the sake of amusement; for they were in the habit of saying things, which would move to laughter the gravest and most phlegmatic man on the face of the earth. You might see them throwing themselves about as if they were ready to leap out of the pulpit; now raising their voices to the highest pitch of fury -- now sinking into a conciliatory whisper -- sometimes they beat the desk with their hands -- sometimes they laughed, and in the course of their babbling they assumed as many forms as Proteus. Indeed they are more like monkeys than preachers, and have no qualification for their profession, except an unwearied pair of lungs."
Though the impudence of these men, which was equal to their folly, disgusted people of good sense, they had numerous partizans and admirers among the populace. Elated by their success, they arrogated to themselves considerable consequence. Some of them, in the pride of their hearts, scorned to hold inferior stations in the convents in which they were established, and solicited the erection of new monasteries, of which their ambition prompted them to expect to become superiors. Scandalized by these irregularities, the assertors of discipline summoned an assembly of the brothers of the Franciscan order from every province of Italy, for the purpose of remedying these evils, which were likely to bring disgrace upon their fraternity. This assembly, which consisted of eighty members, decreed, that a general chapter of their order should be held on the ensuing feast of Pentecost -- that in the interim, six only of the friars should be allowed to preach -- and that no new convent should be erected for the accommodation of the Franciscans, till the pleasure of the above-mentioned general chapter should be known. The task of drawing up these decrees was assigned to Poggio -- a task which it may be presumed he undertook with pleasure, and executed with fidelity. The mortified preachers and their partizans, imagining that Poggio was not only the register, but the author of these unwelcome restrictions, inveighed against his conduct with great bitterness...."
nedits: Soon after a citizen of Florence presented to the brothers a small estate near Arezzo. The monks started building, Poggio told the pope who ordered his bishop to put a stop to this construction. The monks and their partisans...
"... farther excited... indignant, industriously vilified his [Poggio's} character, repre-senting him as an enemy of the Christian faith, and a malignant persecutor of the true believers. Niccolo Niccoli, with his usual impetuosity, gave credit to these accusations, and wrote to Poggio a letter of remonstrance. To this letter Poggio replied, first stating the facts of the case, and then protesting that he was no enemy either to religion or its professors--...."
Direct quotes from
The Life of Poggio Bracciolini, by William Shepherd,
Printed for Harris Brothers for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, London, 1837, pp. 162-164. and found in
e-book form here.
This happened c. 1430. The story continues of course and I will get back to Burckhardt and what he extracted from Poggio about nobility and more about why this all matters later. And I will return soon to Shepherd's Life of Poggio as well.
