Poggio Bracciolini

Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini or Poggio Bracciolini known as Pogge (Terranuova, February 11th, 1380 - Florence, October 30th, 1459) is a scholar, a writer, a Philosophe, a Humaniste and a Italian Politician of the Renaissance, which was Chancelier of the République of Florence of 1453 to 1458.

It belonged to the circle of well-read men of a preceding chancellor of the republic of Florence, Coluccio Salutati, with Leonardo Bruni and Niccolò Niccoli which met to discuss works of Pétrarque and of Boccace.

Biography

Poggio Bracciolini was born, at the end of the 14th century, in a small commune of the Province of Arezzo - on the name of which one from now on joined his patronym ( Terranuova Bracciolini ) - in Toscane. He is the son of Guccio Bracciolini, general storekeeper, and of Iacoba Frutti.

After having completed its studies with Florence, it went to Rome, where he became clerk, then secretary of the pontifical curia as of 1403, under Boniface IX. It will remain it - with interruptions, in particular because of a stay in England of 1418 with 1423 - under some of its successors. In 1431, he became the private secretary of the Pape Eugene IV (1431 - 1447). Because of the vicissitudes of the Great schism of Occident, it was, because of position that it occupied, brought to travel through the France and the Germany, to follow work of the Concile of Constancy.

Being made in Swiss with many recoveries between 1414 and 1418 to take part in this council, Pogge discovered in Swiss, German convents and French of the Manuscrit S of ancient authors, whom it made it possible to redécouvrir. Of Cluny and Saint-Gall, he exhumed texts of Quintilien, Stace, of Lucrèce, Columelle, Cicéron, Plaute (12 comedies), of Ammien Marcellin, Pétrone and Tacite. In this search of the texts of the ancient world - impetus by Pétrarque at the previous century - which was one of the major characteristics of the history of the thought in this beginning of the Renaissance, Poggio Bracciolini seems one of the large discoverers of manuscripts.

In 1436, it married Vaggia de' Buondelmonti, girl of the Podestat Ghino di Manente.

In 1439, at the request of the pope, Pogge collected the account of the voyage which made the Venetian merchant Nicolò de' Conti, which, of 1414 with 1439, furrowed the Arabia and the Indian Ocean of Damas to Java, while passing by Baghdad, Ormuz, Cambay, Malabar, Ceylon, the Bengal, the Burma, etc…). On the way of the return (Socotra, Ethiopian coast, Red Sea, Cairo), Conti was constrained, out of ground of Islam, to disavow its faith to save its life and those of his wife and her children. As of its return in Italy, it went be sorry to the pope. Eugene IV granted to him and forced to him like penitence to tell its tour with its private secretary.

A controversy opposed Poggio Bracciolini to Guarino Veronese about the compared merits of César and from Scipion It began in 1435, when, in a letter in Ferrarais Scipion Mainenti, Pogge exalta, the merits of the winner of Hannibal. Outraged, Guarino retorted in a letter with its faithful disciple Leonello d' Este, who was followed of a new letter of Polge - addressed this time to Francisco Barbaro - ( Defensio of praestentia Cesaris and Scipionis ). The stake of this controversy lies within the scope of the political struggles of the Italy of the Quattrocento, where the temptation of the Tyrannie, associated with the Civil war, worried the spirits and nourished the writings.

Poggio Bracciolini left us some treaties philosophical and political, of the dialogs ( Of avaritia , Contra hypocritas , etc), of the lampoons ( Invectivae ), a collection of anecdotes and sentences ( Facetiae ) and a history of Florence . Its letters are of great importance; it evokes there for example Bade in 1416 - 1417, the convent of Saint-Gall or the execution of Jerome of Prague, friend of Jean Hus, which undergoes the same fate as the Czech reformer, one year later (May 1416).

Works of Pogge available in bookstore

“ does an old man have to marry? ”, translated and commented on by Veronique Bruez, ED. Beautiful Letters, 176 p., ISBN 2-251-33933-7, (1998)
“ Jokes ” (Confabulationes), Latin text, philological note and notes of Stefano Pittaluga, translation and introduction of Etienne Wolf., ED. Beautiful Letters, 386 p., Index, Bibliography, ISBN 2-251-73016-8, (2005).
“ Correspondence ”, H. Harth, ED., 3 vol., 1984-1987

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