Flavio Biondo

Flavio Biondo (in Latin Flavius Blondus ), (born in 1392 or 1388 with Forlì, Emilie-Romagna - died in 1463) was a historian, archeologist and Humaniste of the Italian Renaissance. It was the first to use the expression “ Moyen-âge ” and was also a pioneer of the Archéologie.

Biography

Historian and Italian archeologist, born in Forli in 1388, died in Rome in 1463. One owes him the discovery with Milan of the single copy of the dialog of Cicéron: Brutus, of claris oratoribus , of which it multiplied the copies in all the Italy. He was secretary of the Pape S Eugene IV, Nicolas V, Calixte III and Pie II, and composed on antiquities of Rome and the Italy of the extremely remarkable works for the time, and which was consulted a long time with fruit. One quotes especially: Romae instaurata lib. III (Vérone, 1481, in-fol.), and Rome triumphantis lib. X (1482, in-fol.). Its works were joined together with Basle (1559).

Birth date It was born… the year 1388. According to its epitaph, he lived seventy-five years, and died on June 4th 1463. Vossius brings it back, like drawn from the Description of Rome of George Fabricius. The Labbe father, in his Treasure of Epitaphs , and Schraderus, in his Monuments of Italy brings it back in the same way. Some others bring back it as if it gave to Blondus only sixty and eleven years of life; but it is probably about a misprint copied several times, and of which one should not be prevailed to support what Paul Jove said, that Blondus died at the seventy years age. I will notice by occasion a similar mistake, which is in Vossius: the printers registered MCCCLVIII instead of MCCCCLVIII; because it is about the year that Jean Gobelin indicates, while speaking about dead about Flavius Blondus: rr Vossius knew très-bien that this year is the 63 of the 15th century. Sandius did not observe this fault. Magirus, by bringing back the epitaph, and everywhere else where it marks the funeral year of Blondus, spends 1363, instead of 1463.

(Historical and critical Dictionary of Pierre Bayle, Volume third, 1820 - Gallica Source)

Born in 1392 in the town of Forlì, capital of the Romagna, it accepted a thorough instruction. It leaves for Rome in 1433; named with the papal secretariat in 1444, it starts an activity of writer. He was secretary of the popes Eugene IV, Nicolas V, Calixte III and Pie II ( Piccolomini ). He discovered in Milan the single specimen of the dialog of Cicéron Of claris oratoribus , of which all Italy had soon copies.

Its three encyclopedias will nourish later on many works on Roman antiquity. Of its archaeological work Flavio Biondo published three documented guides of the ruins of old Rome, which conferred to him its fame of “first of the archeologists”.

The biographers are dubious of knowing which of these two names is that of family and which is the first name of the scientist who carried them in the 15th century. On a side, its sepulchral inscription, Annals of Forli its fatherland, quoted by Muratori, and several letters of the scientist Philelphe, his contemporary, call it Biondo Flavio; other, Palmieri, in its Chronic , Paul Coils, in his Éloges , Alberti, in its Description of Italy , Joseph Sealiger and some other authors name it Flavio Biondo. Tiraboschi, by adopting the first opinion, declares that it will not make the war with those which are second. We are not more been willing to make it with those which think like him; however, though we initially were of his opinion on these two names, as the place even proves it as reserved we to them in the alphabetical order, we will acknowledge that we have a scruple as strong on top as one can about it have on a similar subject. It is in Latin that this author always wrote, and its Latin names are Flavius Blondus. Some name of saint whom it had received with the baptism, one sees that it changed it while entering the career of the letters for the Roman name Flavius, according to the use of its time; but Blondus is not a Latin name, and can be only the Italian name Latinized Blondo. Our author had a brother named Matteo Biondo, which was abbot of Sainte-Marie of the Rotunda; and he says itself of this brother, in one of his works: Praestque illi monasterio abbas Matthoeus Blondus nobis frater germanus ; finally, its descendants bore the name of Biondo, and not that of Flavio. It as was claimed as it was of the family of Ravaldini, one the most distinguished of from Forli; Apostolo Zeno, in its notes on the Italian Library of Fontanini, is itself of this opinion. Tiraboschi allows although one is, but he acknowledges that he does not see of them an evidence enough some; and it is still a doubt that one can divide with him. At all events, Flavio Biondo was born in Forli have 1388. He learned the Grammaire, the Rhétorique and the Poétique of the scientist Jean Ballistario of Crémone. He was still extremely young when he was sent to Milan by his fellow-citizens to treat some their businesses; and it was whereas having found the manuscript single of the dialog of Cicéron Of claris oratoribus , it made its hand of it a copy which, sent to Vérone and then to Venice, spread this work in all Italy. Biondo prepared to leave for Rome in 1430, when Francisco Barbaro, noble Venetian which had for him much regard, having been appointed praetor of Bergamo, offered to him the place of sound Chancelier, which it accepted. It went to Rome under the pontificate of Eugene IV and was so well recommended to him, that this pope chooses it, little time after, for its secretary. Eugene sent it in 1434, with the bishop of Recanati, in embassy in Florence and Venice, to request helps from these two republics; its mission obtained little success there, but it had itself of it very-large; he lives himself accommodated everywhere with eagerness, and accepted even in Venice the title of citizen for him and his descendants. He was for the second time at Florence in 1441, undoubtedly with this same pope who had resided at it for a few years. During all the remainder of the life of Eugene, who died only in 1447, Biondo fills near him same employment; it preserved it under its three successors, Nicolas V, Calixte III and Magpie II. It appears however that it was calumniated by its enemies near the first of these three pontiffs, and that he resulted from it for him a kind of disgrace. It went away from Rome in 1450, made some stay with Ferrare, and wanted unnecessarily to obtain, by the credit of Philelphe, an honest employment at the court of the duke of Milan, François Sforza; but it finally went back to Rome in 1453: Nicolas V made him very warm welcome and all its confidence returned to him. In this place, which it occupied so a long time, it would have easily made its fortune, if it had taken the ecclesiastical state; but it was married. Glad to leave with its five sons a neat education and to have formed them with sciences, it shared the little of goods which it had been able to pile up between his daughters, to be used to them as Dot. Its sons carried the first names of Antoine, Gaspar, Jerome, Julien and Francois, and all five the name of Riondo. Magnam spem, says it itself. Dei munere constitutam videmus in quinque BIONDIS natis nostris which literis omnes pro aetate sunt pleni (Ital. illustr. Area., T. 6, p. 348. This passage appears to us to leave little doubt about the question of knowing if it were Florio or Biondo which was its family name. He died in Rome on June 4th, 1463, 75 years old, leaving several scientists works who were collected and published together in Basle in 1531 and were reprinted in 1559, In-fol.

(Biography universal, Michaud, old and modern) Tome cheese fourteenth - Article Flavius Biondus - Gallica Source)

Archeology

In 1430, when Poggio Bracciolini climbing the Campidoglio; he saw around him only one wide of abandoned fields: the Roman forum , populated pigs and where grew freely the vegetation. Flavio Biondo and the other humanistic ones like Battista, Alberti, started to study the Architecture, the Topographie and the history of the old Rome, either by seeking documentation in the classic authors, or by exploring the vestiges. In 1459 it published the triumphs of Rome , history of pagan Rome , set up in model of government and military organization. The book had a great influence and insufflated patriotism and the respect for old Rome while presenting Papacy like the continuation of the Roman Empire.

archaeological works

For

Firstly, the long stay which it made in Rome and the attentive examination of the innumerable remainders of antiquity, of which this capital of the world was filled made him conceive the idea to publish the description, most exact that it would be possible for him, of the site, the buildings, the doors, the temples and other monuments of old Rome; it is what it carried out in a work that it dedicated to the pope Eugene IV, and who is entitled: Romae instauratur libri very : work of an extraordinary scholarship for time, and in which the monuments are explained, for the first time, by testimonys of the former authors, collected and examined with an untiring care and an attention. The first edition of this book appeared, according to Maittaire, in Vérone, 1482, in-fol.

Dexièmement, the government, the laws, the religion, the ceremonies of the sacrifices, the militia, the war, the triumphs, finally the whole form of the administration of the Roman republic, prone even more difficult, which required more work and longer studies, and which had still been tested by nobody, was the object of another work of Biondo, that he wrote only in the last years of his life; it gave him for title: Romae triumphantis libri decem , and dedicated it to the pope Pie II: the same bibliographer quotes of it a first edition of the same year 1482, in Brescia, also in-fol.

Thirdly, it is still being studied of antiquities which should be reported the work that it composed, at the request of Alphonse d' Aragon, king de Naples, and who contains, under the title of Italia illustrata , the description of whole Italy, divided as it was it in the past in fourteen areas, with research on the origin, the history and the revolutions of each province and each city. The first edition appeared in Rome, at J. - pH. of Lignamine, in 1474, in-fol., by the care of his/her son Gaspard Biondo.

(Biography universal, Michaud, old and modern) Tome cheese fourteenth - Article Flavius Biondus - Gallica Source)

Against

Born in Forli, in Italy, in the year 1388, stuck to the humanities with such an amount of application, and as well of success, as having gone in Rome in a time when the learned men were rarer than they were it since, it found there soon owners among same the cardinals, who recommended it to the pope Eugene IV; and made him obtain from him the load of secretary. He was continued in this employment by the successors of Eugene, to Pie II, under the pontificate of which he died, 4 of June 1463. He composed much of books (b), and inter alia a History from year 400 at the year 1440. He does not approach the purity of style, which appeared in some historians of the 16th century century, and one should not even too much trust with all that it says; because, nevertheless one would convince oneself that it acted in good faith, one should consider that it followed misleading guides, and that he had more in order to gather much things, to examine whether they were true. One would be nevertheless ungrateful and, unjust, if it were not recognized that its work was useful for the republic of the letters, and if one did not have regard to the difficulties which it encountered, being almost the first which had undertaken the restoration of Roman antiquities. Though it was in charge of family, it behaved in philosophical good with regard to the richnesses: it did not try to acquire some, and it did not want to even leave with its sons a portion of the heritage; because the indicator quite high and rather old so that they could work with their fortune, it left with his/her daughters any sound well. Those which will want to know various the jugemens that one made his books, will be able to consult the Eponymologium of Magirus, Hankius de Scripturibus Rerum Romanarum , and the Censura celebriorum auctorum of Pope Blount. Some support that it should be named Blondus Flavius, and not Flavius Blondus. These two names mean the same thing.

(Historical and critical Dictionary of Pierre Bayle, Volume third, 1820 - Gallica Source)

Historical works

Let us quote its historical works most important: illustrated Italy , published in 1474, and historical decades of the decline of the Empire Romain published in 1483.

Italia illustrata

illustrated Italy is a book of geography, established starting from the personal voyages of the author, and on the history of the Italian provinces then eighteen. The history starts with the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, crosses 400 years of cruel invasions and analyzes the relationship with the empire Carolingien and the Saint Germanic Roman Empire. Work in the course of digitalization by the humanistic virtual libraries.

Historiarum ab inclinatione Romani imperii AD annum 1440

He had undertaken a historical work of a greater extent, and which was to embrace the general history since the fall of the Roman Empire until its time; but when he died he had written of them only three decades and the first liter of the fourth, which were printed initially separately: Historiarum ab inclinatione Romani imperii AD annum 1440, decade III , libri XXXI, Venice, 1483, In-fol.

The pope Pie II (Anaeas Sylvius) was so satisfied with this work, which he wanted to make a summary, which appeared following the second edition: cum abreciatione Pii II, papae . Venice, 1484, in-fol. ; but, the summary extends only until the end from the second decade.

It is him which introduces for the first time the concept of “ Moyen-âge ”, which will cover all this period.

The same collection still contains a work on the origin and the history of the republic of Venice, which had also appeared first once under the title: Of origin ac gestis the enctorum , Vérone, 1481, in-fol. The library of Oxford has, says one, a manuscript entitled Blondi Consultatio year bellum vel pax cum Turcis magis expediat recip Venetae . The decision of the author is for the war. One quotes also two manuscripts of him, in the library of the Vatican, one having for title expeditione in Turcas AD Alphonsum regem ; and the other: Decadem AD ducem Gennae . The subject is the same one as that of the precedent, and they tend to the same goal. The historical works Biondo sin especially by the style, which is dry and not very elegant. Those which have antiquity for object have the same defect; one can there also take again errors and much of omissions. Rome and Italy was known better and described better by the antique dealers of Xe century, and were it more perfectly still in 18th and nowadays; but Flavio Biondo entered the first the career; it levels it, it prepared it for those which were to follow it, and its works, though imperfect, suppose in him much knowledge, of application and sagacity. C-t.

(Biography universal, Michaud, old and modern) Tome cheese fourteenth - Article “Flavius Biondus” - Gallica Source)

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