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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Francesco Filelfo's stature as the first important Western European professor of Greek after Guarino Veronese has long been recognized. At thirty-six Filelfo had already held academic posts at Padua, Venice, Bologna, Florence, and Siena. He spent the last four decades of his life, for the most part, in the service of the Visconti-Sforza Dukes of Milan. But even during these years the Este of Ferrara, the Gonzaga of Mantua, and the Malatesta of Rimini had entertained him too, and three successive popes had called him to Rome. At the same time his brush with death at the hands of an assassin in Florence and his battles with the Medici had made Filelfo the most notorious of the early humanists.
1 Rosmini, Carlo, Vita di Francesco Filelfo da Tolentino, 3 vols. (Milan, 1808)Google Scholar is the standard biography. On Filelfo's importance as the first Western European teacher of Greek see especially Symonds, John Aldington, The Revival of Learning: The Renaissance in Italy, vol. II (London, 1877 Google Scholar; rpt. New York, 1960); Symonds, pp. 193-209 is principally a digest of Rosmini. See also Woodward, William Harrison, Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators (Cambridge Univ., 1905), pp. 17, 30, 51Google Scholar, and passim; Woodward also places Aurispa, who is generally noted as a more zealous book collector than teacher, in the group of three first competent Italian teachers of Greek; Voigt, Georg, Die Wiederbelebung des Klassischen Altertums: das erstefahrhundert des Humanismus, Band I (Berlin, 1880), pp. 350-69Google Scholar; Voigt draws attention to the impact Filelfo's teaching had on a whole generation of students at the Studio Fiorentino. Cammelli, Giuseppe I dotti ilizantini e le origini dell'umanesimo. vol. I: Manuele Crisolora (Florence, 1941), p. 6 Google Scholar, passim; Cammelli writes that of all the Italians who taught Greek in Florence Filelfo was the most distinguished. See also da Bisticci, Vespasiano, Vite di uomini illustri del secolo XV (Milan, 1951)Google Scholar, pp. 350ff., the great Quattrocento biographer and Filelfo's first biographer; and Tiraboschi, , Storia delta letteratura, vol. vi (Modena, 1787-94)Google Scholar, libro III, pp. 1002-27. Zippel, Giuseppe, Il Filelfo a Firenze (Rome, 1899)Google Scholar is another important source; however I have been unable to obtain it either in Florence or in our libraries.
2 The account of the attack is in Francisci Philelfi Epistolarum familiarum libri XXXVII (Venice, 1502), fols. 17—18v; hereafter cited as Philelfi. Rosmini, p. 65f. sees no reason to doubt Filelfo's assertion that the Medici were behind the attack.
3 The British Museum Catalogue lists 31 editions prior to 1521; the National Union Catalogue lists an additional 10 editions.
4 Rosmini's biography is based primarily on the 1502 edition of Filelfo's letters (cited above), a collection of unedited letters of Filelfo from the codex Trivulziana 873; and the collected letters of Filelfo's patron, Traversari, Ambrogio, Ambrosii Traversari Latinae Epistolae, ed. Mehus, L. (Florence, 1759)Google Scholar; hereafter cited as Traversari.
5 The 1502 Venice edition is cited above. Another important source for Filelfo studies is an edition of his Greek letters, Legrand, Emile, Cent-dix Lettres Grecques de Francois de Filelfe (Paris, 1892)Google Scholar. This edition is also rather rare. An Italian translation of Legrand is also available: Lettere di F. Filelfo volgarizzate dal greco, ed. Agostinelli, L. (Tolentino, 1899)Google Scholar.
6 See Traversari, bks. vi, viii, xxiv. Stinger, Charles L., Humanism and the Church Fathers: Ambrogio Traversari (1386-1439) and Christian Antiquity in the Italian Renaissance (Albany, 1977)Google Scholar is the standard biography of Traversari; Stinger, who does not cite any of the editions of Filelfo's letters, has taken at face value Traversari's testimony against Filelfo.
7 Invectives I, II, III are printed in Bracciolini, Poggio, Opera omnia, ed. Fubini, R., vol. I (Basel, 1538 Google Scholar; rpt. Turin, 1964), pp. 164-87; hereafter cited as Poggio, Opera. Invective IV is in Walser, Ernst, Poggius Florentinus: Lehen und Werke (Leipzig, 1914)Google Scholar. See also Gordan, Phyllis Walter Goodhart, ed. and tr., Two Renaissance Book Hunters: The Letters of Poggius Bracciolini to Nicolaus de Niccolis (New York, 1974)Google Scholar.
8 Gragg, Florence Alden, ed. Latin Writings of the Italian Humanists (New York, 1972 Google Scholar; rpt. NewRochelle, 1981), pp. xiiif.
9 Perosa, Alessandro and Sparrow, John, eds., Renaissance Latin Verse: An Anthology (Chapel Hill, 1979), p. 21 Google Scholar. See also Leonard Grant, W., Neo-Latin Literature and the Pastoral (Chapel Hill, 1965), p. 14 Google Scholar, in which Filelfo is characterized as “the least humane of the Humanists, a man whose entire life was a constant quarrel.“
10 Martines, Lauro, Power and Imagination (New York, 1979), p. 21 Google Scholar; Sandys, John Edwin, A History of Classical Scholarship, vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1903-08Google Scholar; rpt. New York, 1964), p. 56. See also Symonds comment in The Revival of Learning, p. 205: “Filelfo's rapacity is truly disgusting when we remember that he received far more than any equally distinguished student.” Hay, Denys in The Italian Renaissance in Its Historical Background (Cambridge, 1961), p. 181 Google Scholar, charged that Filelfo was one of those humanists “who inherited from Petrarch a love of liberty and meant by it a desire for irresponsibility and indulgence.“
11 See Sabbadini, Remigio, Le scoperte dei codici latini egreci ne’ secoli xiv e xv, vol. I, pp. 43—55Google Scholar. Sabbadini writes that in 1423 Giovanni Aurispa brought back over two hundred Greek codices from Constantinople. The list of books Filelfo brought back from Constantinople is contained in part in Sabbadini, p. 48; the whole list is given in Traversari, Letter xxxii, bk. xxiv, in Symonds, pp. 195-196^ and in Calderini, Aristide, “Ricerche intorno alia bibloteca e cultura greca di Francesco Filelfo,” Studi Italiani di Filologia Classka, 20 (1913), p. 217n.Google Scholar
12 Tiraboschi, p. 1005 says that both Barbaro and Giustiniani were out of town when Filelfo arrived in Venice because of the plague; however Filelfo's frequent letters to Giustiniani during this period make it look as if he must have been in town: see Philelfi, fols. 1-4. All the translations from the Latin in this paper are mine.
13 Filelfo refers to promises Giustiniani made him in his letters to the nobleman in ^Philelfi, fols. I, 2, 4 (11 October 1427, 16 December 1427, 11 February 1428).
14 Philelfi, fol. 2 (15 December 1427).
15 Philefi, fol. 2 (15 December 1427).
16 Philelfi, fol. 4 (13 February 1428).
17 Philelfi, fols. 2-4.
18 Philelfi, fol. 2 (16 December 1427): “Posteaquam id cubiculi, ubi mea ilia bona continentur, suspectum est, propter eum, qui eo in loco, pestilentiali morbo correptus excessit e vivis, non solum expectabo, sed diu etiam multumque expectabo, quoad aer ad salubritatem redierit. Sed interea temporis, ut mihi … consulas, te plurimum rogo. Nam diutius ita agere nee possum, nee volo.“
19 Philelfi, fol. 6v (14 June 1428): “Narravit mihi Ianncs Corbitius quanta me benivolentia … es locutus. Addiditque te propediem effecturum ut vol Vcnctiis vel Patavii quam honestissime esse possim, quare non esse opus, ut libros sibi meos ad me daret, cum apud vos [sim] honorificentissime futurus.” Correxi ipsa; editio habet: sit.
20 For a detailed discussion of Filelfo's attempt to recover his codices from Giustiniani, Barbaro, and Lippomano see Calderini, esp. pp. 215-29. In the years after Filelfo left Florence he corresponded with some regularity with Giustiniani: see Philelji, fols. 14, 16v-17, 22v, 32, 33; actually only in two of Filelfo's post-Florence letters that we have did he request the return of his codices from Giustiniani: see Philelfi, fol. 14 (15 August, 1437) and a Greek letter to G. in Legrand, p. 36 (29 September 1440). In a letter dated 15 November 1450 Filelfo requested the return of his codices from Bernardo Giustiniani: see Phlelfi, fol. 50v.
21 For a defense of Giustiniani's confiscation of Filelfo's books see Fenigstein, Berthold, Leonardo Giustiniani (1383?-1446): Venezianischer Staatsmann, Humanist und Vulgardichter (Halle, 1909), pp. 50–56 Google Scholar. Calderini, however, pp. 224-25, disagrees with Fenigstein's complete exoneration of Giustiniani. He points out that Giustiniani's confiscation of Filelfo's codices could not in itself indicate that Filelfo was in the wrong; Calderini also notes that Francesco Barbaro also failed to return codices entrusted to him by Filelfo, but that Barbaro, according to Filelfo (Philelfi, f. 43), admitted in the presence of a witness, Febo Capella, that he held certain codices which belonged to Filelfo. The problem here, of course, is that the testimony is still Filelfo's.
22 Traversari, bk. vi, Letter xxviii: Franciscus Philelphus heri profectus ad me, ut te literis obsecrarem, ut sumpto pretio quantum tibi debetur, libros suos, atque vestes illi rectitueres, hucque sua impensa transmitteres“; later in the same letter T. reiterates Filelfo's general instructions: a certain Zenobi was to “ut pretium omne tibi quantum posceres, redderet.” What this pretium was is nowhere explained.
23 Traversari, bk. vi; Letter xxviii: “Leonardc humanissime, moleste accepi ea, quae … Mariottus nostcr … retulit; displicuitque virum ilium contra fidem esse, ne scilicet opera Plutarchi, quae dono se daturum tibi pollicitus erat, vel, pretio accepto, tui iuris esse sineret… . “ Again Traversari does not make clear the connection between the money he claimed Filelfo had accepted ﹛pretio accepto) and the gift (dono, etc.) he claimed Filelfo had promised to Giustiniani.
24 See n. 20. Rosmini, vol. II, p. 69, notes that the only real interruption in amicable relations between Filelfo and Giustiniani occurred in March 1431 when a decree, which R. believes was pushed through by Giustiniani and his friends, was issued sentencing Filelfo to three years’ imprisonment for having spoken injuriously of the Venetian Republic and one of its leading citizens. Two days later the decree was rescinded, and by July 1431 Filelfo was writing Giustiniani to thank him warmly for an invitation issued by Giustiniani and other friends on behalf of the Venetian Senate to come to Venice (an unedited letter published in Rosmini, vol. II, p. 134).
25 See Philelfi, fol. 9V (February 1429): Filelfo wrote to Bruni from Bologna, “Do you think I enjoy the daily sight of war and savagery? Some men are executed by hanging, others have died in battle, others have been torn apart, others lie buried… . “
26 See Traversari, bk. xxiv, Letters xxix-xli; and also Leonardi Bruni Arretini Epistularum libri viii, vol. 2, ed. L. Mehus (Florence, 1741), pp. 30-31. Bruni had written Filelfo: ”… considering your [possible] position [here], I don't know what I should write… . We await new magistrates, in which case I feel I can hold out some hope. This publicly. Privately: you have won the support of most of the youth, but this part Traversari has seen to.“
27 Traversari, bk. vi (22 May 1429), Letter xxxiv.
28 Traversari, bk. vi (undated 1430), Letter xxi
29 Traversari, bk. vi, Letter xxx: ”…de volumine illo M. Lippomani … mittat illud sane tuto ad me nihil metuens. In tantum enim aberit, ut Philelphus id norit, aut videat, ut ne hoc ipsum quidem, quod ipse hac de re ad vos scripserim, ilium scire voluerim. Licet enim ille oratus a me ad Marcum ipsum literas daturum pollicitus sit, nihil tamen quid ipse secum, et cum ipso Uteris egerim novit; satisque illi erit, si denuo precibus eum non fatigavero. Quamquam ea est conditio eius apud nos, eaquc fors, ut, etsi forte in illius manus liber ille inciderct, eum ab invito, et renitente recipercmus. Est enim plane miserabilis, et qui in dies evadat egenior. Nusquam hac tempestate digrcssus est, credo sola inopiae ratione cogente traduxit quaedem ex graeco… .“
30 Poggio, Opera, pp. 164-87.
31 Poggio, Opera, p. 169: “Would I tell a lie? What more can I say? You want me to go on? There is a young man who will testify. There are knowledgeable witnesses, whose names, like it or not, will be brought out into the open in order to insure your eternal disgrace, [Filelfo].“
32 Poggio, Opera, p. 180.
33 Poggio, Opera, p. 180.
34 Poggio, Opera, p. 181.
35 Poggio, Opera, p. 175 and passim.
36 Symonds, p. 19411.
37 Philelfi, fol. 7 (30 September 1428).
38 Martines, Lauro, The Social World of the Florentine Humanists: 1390-1460 (Princeton, 1963), pp. 124-31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
39 Katherine Parke, “The Readers of the Florentine Studio According to Communal Fiscal Records (1357-1380, 1413-1446),” Rinascimento: Rivista dell'Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, ser. 2, 19 (1979), pp. 271 f.
40 Burckhardt, Jacob, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, vol. I (New York, 1929; rpt. 1958), p. 197.Google Scholar
41 Symonds, p. 208.
42 Traversari Epist., Letter ix, bk. viii: “Nuper a Guarino accepi literas, quibus vehementer in fortunam invehitur, quod filiam clarissimi viri Ioannis Chrysolorae is acceperit exterus, qui quantumlibet bono ingenio, longe tamen illis nuptiis impar esset, quaeriturque substomachans uxorem Chrysolorae venalem pudicitiam, moechumque antea habuisse, quam socerum.” The above text has been widely quoted: see Tiraboschi, p. 1005; Symonds, p. 195; Rosmini, p. 17n; and G. Cammelli, p. 23n; this text is also alluded to in Poggio's fourth Invective in Walser, Poggius Florentinus: Leben und Werke, p. 467; and in Sabbadini, Remigio, Vita di Guarino Veronese, Pt. I of Guariniana (Turin, 1964), p. 49.Google Scholar
43 Rosmini, p. 1711.
44 Tiraboschi, p. 1005. Symonds’ reading, p. 19511, of Tiraboschi's attitude toward the text in question seems to me to be wrong. Symonds writes here that Tiraboschi “clearly leans in private against Filelfo, moved by the … passage from … Traversari.” Far from “leaning in private against Filelfo” Tiraboschi dubbed the letter “alquanto dubbioso” and said that nevertheless the passage proved at least “che fin d'allora corsero intorno a un tal matrimonio voci mon molto onerevoli al Filelfo.” Surely the existence of rumors is not tantamount to a conviction.
45 Poggio, Opera, the first Invective, pp. 164-69 and passim in the other Invectives.
46 Walser, , Poggius Florentinus, p. 467 Google Scholar: “This corrupter of young men, this debaucher of women, this impertinent little thief! Here's a man who calls it having a good time when he knows he's abominably betrayed his own host, John Chrysoloras. After all, first he seduced Chrysoloras's wife, and then in violation of all decency he corrupted Chrysoloras's daughter, a virgin—whom he afterwards married.“
47 Poggio, Opera, p. 168.
48 Filelfo claimed he was 
(lit.: having three testicles; met.: exceptionally active sexually). See for example Rosmini, p. 113 (an unedited epigram from F.'s Dejocis et Seriis): here Filelfo speaks of himself as “vates tribus testibus.“
49 Vespasiano da Bisticci, p. 351.
50 Sandys, p. 55.
51 Philetfi, fols. 9-10v (August 1429); see also Traversari, bk. xxiv, Letter xxxx for Filelfo's description of his syllabus.
52 Philelfi, fol. 9 (August 1429).
53 Traversari, bk. vi, Letter xxi.
54 Traversari, bk. vi, Letter xxi.
55 philelfi, fol. 12V.
56 Stinger, pp. 20-25.
57 Traversari, bk. vi, Letter xxi.
58 For the account of Filelfo's dismissal and reinstatement see Rosmini, vol. I, pp. 60ff. and Philelfi, fols. 12v-13v.
59 See Philelfi, fols. 12V—13V. Palla Strozzi proved to be a lifelong friend and ally to Filelfo; their correspondence continued with increasing frequency until Palla's death in 1462.
60 See n. 2.
61 See Philelfi, fol. 12V: Filelfo accused Niccoli of having driven these scholars out of Florence. However Thomson, Ian in “Manuel Chrysoloras and the Early Renaissance,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 7 (1966), pp. 79–82 Google Scholar, argues convincingly that Chrysoloras left Florence not because of any personal differences with the local literati, but because his mission was diplomatic rather than pedagogic; Thomson reasons that Chrysoloras left Tuscany for what he hoped would be greener pastures in Lombardy when he failed to win support for the Paleologi in Florence.
62 Philelfi, fol. 9.
63 Remigio Sabbadini, Carteggio di Giovanni Aurispa. Fond per la Storia d'italia (Rome, 1931), p. 41: “Credideram quom Graecorum invidiam fugissem 
in tutum me collocaturum et neminem offensurum esse, si mecum viverem; sed longe aliter evenit. Ibi enim 
… pacem et quietem nonnunquam inveniebam; undique hie simultates et indigna facinora conflantur; nihil mihi pacificum, omnia invidorum et stultorum plena sunt: hic 
….”
64 Sabbadini, Vita di Guarino, p. 18: ”… nel tempo che io fui a Firenze non sorse … giorno che io non fossi tormentato da brighe, da insulti, da litigi. Vi è in codesta setta malvagia tanta smania, anzi avarizia di gloria, non di quella vera, ma di quella effimera … che pur di conseguirla non hanno alcun riguardo alia reputazione altrui. Onde non lodano nessuno se non con frasi mozze … Se ti sentono lodare uno, se ne hanno a male, brontolano, fanno i visacci e, come se la lode data agli altri andasse a scapito della propria, invidiano i lodati e mordano i lodatori. Di qui animosita tra loro, odio contra gli altri. Queste non sono amicizie ma cospirazioni.“
65 Traversari, bk. vi, Letter xxxiv.
66 Traversari, bk. vi, Letter xxvi: ”… [Philelphus] nonnihil, immo vero plurimum, habet Graecae levitatis, et vanitatis admixtum … Magna de se pollicetur. Sed apud eos, qui (ut ipse quoque verissime sends) huiusce merces probe callent, melius consuleret sibi, si parcius de se loqueretur… . “
67 Traversari, bk. vi, Letter xxx: “Vincit illius improbitas propositum mcum, quo illi aditum ad me prorsus obstruere decreveram, ne otium mcum aliis intcntum, et deditum studiis obtunderet; fregitque constantiam. Sane Philonis illud volumen mihi, me retinente, largitus est, eaque tandem ratione in suam traduxit sententiam, ut posthac nihil se imprecari pollicitus sit. Sed ista erunt penes te: neque enim haec volo effundi: licet non eum pudeat in oculis omnium hasce mihi molestias quotidie inferre… . “
68 Traversari, bk. vi, Letter xxi: “Quum [Nicolaus] enim nihil ante ilium [Franciscum], quod ego reminisci possum, manarit, praeter indicia sununae benevolentiae, summum studium, observationemque adeo submissam, ut servituti fere propinqua videretur… . [Franciscus] causas omnes, immo occasiones omnes, levissimas licet, aucupari studiose nisus est, quae discordiae possent esse seminaria… .Evomuitque orationem in ilium [Nicolaum] … omnium, quas unquam legerim, teterrimam, impudentissimam, atque acerbissimam… .Rescripsi… admonens ilium [Philelphum] … ista oratio summum sibi dedecus, indignationemque bonorum omnium pareret, quibus nota vita Nicolai est, hactenus iam tunc a pueritia pudicissime acta semper, atque honestissime … Non placere sobriis auribus maledicta tam foeda, tarn turbia, ne si in scurram aliquem, et circumforaneum nebulonem iaciantur; ceteraque in hunc modum, orans, obsecrans, obtestans, ut dolori, quern summum esse non ignoraret, parceret, amicum integerrimum istis iaculis non insectaretur. Quid autcm istis adhortationibus, quibus furibundi insaniam excantare nitebar perfecerim, audi… . “
69 Poggio, Opera, p. 171: “You [Filelfo] used to follow [Traversari] around like some little schoolboy tagging after his very learned master… .“
70 Poggio, Opera, p. 177, 179.
71 Poggio, Opera, p. 165.
72 Traversari, bk. xxiv, Letter xxxiii.
73 Traversari, bk. xxiv, Letter xxxvii.
74 Traversari, bk. xxiv, Letter xxxii: “Si qua mihi conditio futura istic est, qua possim commode cum familia vivere, libentissime futurus apud vos sum. Malo tamen necessitati, quam voluntati consulere. Gratissimum igitur mihi feceris, si quam primum operam dederis, ut ex literis tuis sentiam, quae mihi apud vos conditio esse possit, quo possim et ipse pro tempore rebus meis consulere. Non enim quod volo faciam, sed quodpotero … “
75 Traversari, bk. xxiv, Letters xxxviii and xxxii.
76 Leonardo Bruni Arretini Epistularum libri viii, vol. 2, pp. 30-31.
77 Traversari, bk. xxiv, Letter xxxv: “Adfecerunt me literae tuae incredibili voluptate, quibus non mediocriter flagrare visus es aliquando id datum iri, ut mutuo inter nos adspectu, atque colloquio quam creberrimo frui liceat. Quid autem me cupere, mi Ambrosi, putas? Dies, noctesque eo sum in ardore visendi, colloquendi, complectendi tui. Nonnunquam Florentiam mihi, persaepe Angelorum Monasterium, Ambrosium semper et fingo et ante oculos pono… .“
78 As Symonds (p. 195m) points out, the Satyrae of Filelfo (Published in Paris, 1508) provide an original source of information concerning Filelfo's quarrel with the Medici. However, since the Satyrae are mentioned neither by Traversari nor Filelfo prior to 1434, they would appear to date to a period after the return of the Medici to Florence and thus cannot be considered as factors leading to Filelfo's banishment in 1434.
