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Political Views in the Preaching of Giovanni Dominici in Renaissance Florence, 1400-1406*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby
Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby*
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Abstract

The Dominican friar Giovanni Dominici (1356-1419) was an influential, charismatic, and popular preacher, and an important figure in the political world of Renaissance Florence, but neglected in modern scholarship. This study offers a thorough summary of Dominici's political views as well as a biographical portrait, a bibliographical survey, and a discussion of Dominici's preaching style. The article draws on a large, unpublished collection of Dominici's sermons from the Biblioteca Riccardiana, dating from 1400 to 1406. Dominici emerges as an ambivalent participant in Florentine politics, advocating some of its civic values such as the active life and patriotism, while fiercely criticizing humanist ideals such as the use of rhetoric in politics and the rise of the professional politician

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , Spring 2002 , pp. 19 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2002

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Footnotes

*

I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Riccardo Fubini and Benjamin Z. Kedar for their guidance and encouragement. I am greatly obliged to David Peterson and Daniel Bornstein for their thoughtful comments and generous help in revising this article. I would also like to thank Peter Howard and James Hankins for theit insights.

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