Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Section I NEW CONTEXTS FOR CLASSICAL PAGAN CULTURE
- Section II NEW CONTEXTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN PAST
- Section III INTELLECTUAL INTERMEDIARIES BETWEEN CULTURES
- Cultural Contacts between the Superpowers of Late Antiquity: the Syriac School of Nisibis and the transmission of Greek educational experience to the Persian Empire
- An Italian Intermediary in the Transmission of the Ancient Classical Traditions to Renaissance Poland: Leonardo Bruni and the Humanism in Cracow
- Jan Latosz (1539–1608) and His Natural Philosophy: reception of Arabic science in early modern Poland
- You Are Christians without a light from Heaven. A Pluriconfessional Encounter: an image of Georgians according to the seventeenth-century Theatine missionaries' writings
- Section IV INTERCULTURAL CONTACTS AND DOMESTIC AGENDAS
An Italian Intermediary in the Transmission of the Ancient Classical Traditions to Renaissance Poland: Leonardo Bruni and the Humanism in Cracow
from Section III - INTELLECTUAL INTERMEDIARIES BETWEEN CULTURES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Section I NEW CONTEXTS FOR CLASSICAL PAGAN CULTURE
- Section II NEW CONTEXTS FOR THE CHRISTIAN PAST
- Section III INTELLECTUAL INTERMEDIARIES BETWEEN CULTURES
- Cultural Contacts between the Superpowers of Late Antiquity: the Syriac School of Nisibis and the transmission of Greek educational experience to the Persian Empire
- An Italian Intermediary in the Transmission of the Ancient Classical Traditions to Renaissance Poland: Leonardo Bruni and the Humanism in Cracow
- Jan Latosz (1539–1608) and His Natural Philosophy: reception of Arabic science in early modern Poland
- You Are Christians without a light from Heaven. A Pluriconfessional Encounter: an image of Georgians according to the seventeenth-century Theatine missionaries' writings
- Section IV INTERCULTURAL CONTACTS AND DOMESTIC AGENDAS
Summary
Introduction
This paper focuses on two subjects: the Italian intercultural intermediaries of classical culture (the case of Leonardo Bruni) and their reception outside the Italian peninsula (the case of the Cracow intellectual milieu). Italian humanists played a crucial role in the transmission of ancient classical traditions. They made a major contribution to both the rediscovery of many ancient texts and their subsequent dissemination; they also helped to shape a particular vision of ancient classical traditions, and adopted certain rhetorical patterns specific to classical authors. It is thanks to these humanists that knowledge of ancient classical traditions reached the intellectual circles of Northern Europe – for instance, those in Cracow – where direct reception of ancient traditions would have been impossible due to the lack of both Greek learning and original manuscripts.
Leonardo Bruni, also called Aretino, (Arezzo ca. 1370–Florence 1444) has been chosen as a case study because he was one the most influential representatives of the first generation of Florentine humanists. Bruni acted as a cultural intermediary by translating the works of the ancient Greeks and also by writing texts in which he tried to emulate both the style of classical writers (mainly Cicero) and classical literary genres. The intellectual formation of Bruni and his attitude toward ancient Greek and Roman literature was strongly influenced by Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), chancellor of Florence and himself a humanist.
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- Cultures in MotionStudies in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods, pp. 205 - 234Publisher: Jagiellonian University PressPrint publication year: 2014