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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2019
Coluccio Salutati, along with Petrarch, is generally looked upon as one of the principal founders of Italian humanism and the Renaissance movement. Professor Berthold Ullman states in his excellent and latest work on Salutati that the renowned chancellor of Florence ‘was second to Petrarch in the humanistic movement, but not far behind'; he points out that Coluccio was the acknowledged leader of this movement for some thirty-two years, from the time of Petrarch's death in 1374 until the chancellor's own in 1406. Vergerio hails Salutati as the leading philosopher of the age; for Antonio Loschi he was the outstanding Latin writer of his time. His reputation as a Latin stylist and moralist, already in the fourteenth century, had spread far beyond the borders of Italy.
1 The Humanism of Coluccio Salutati (Padua, 1963), pp. xvi, 39.Google Scholar For a similar estimate see Weiss, R., The Spread of Italian Humanism (London, 1964), p. 36.Google Scholar
2 Smith, L., ed., Epistolario di Pier Paolo Vergerio (Rome, 1934), p. 62;Google Scholar Novati, F., ed., Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati (Rome, 1891-1911), iv, 476.Google Scholar
3 La coscienza della Rinascita negli umanisti francesi (Rome, 1949), p. 59.Google Scholar
4 Cf. Ferguson, W. K., The Renaissance in Historical Thought (Boston, 1948), p. 8 Google Scholar: 'Petrarch, indeed, may well be regarded as the originator of the conception of die “dark ages”, which was for centuries to dominate the interpretation of medieval history.'
5 Simone, , La coscienza, p. 80.Google Scholar
6 ‘Le origini del Rinascimento in Francia e la funzione storica della cultura avignonese', Convivium (raccolta nuova, 1951), 162-163; this article has been incorporated, with some changes and additions, in II Rinascimento francese (Turin, 1961), pp. 3-44.
7 See Coville's, A. Gontier et Pierre Col et Vhumanisme en France au temps de Charles VI (Paris, 1934)Google Scholar and also his La vie intellectuelle dans les domaines d'Anjou-Provence de 1380 a 1435 (Paris, 1941)Google Scholar; among the many works of Franco Simone touching on this subject, one should consult in particular II Rinascimento francese; E. Ornato has recently opened up a mine of information in this field in a series of studies: ‘La prima fortuna del Petrarca in Francia', Studi francesi, 5 (1961), 201-217, 401-414; ‘Per la fortuna del Boccaccio in Francia: una lettera inedita di Jean de Montreuil', Studi francesi, 4 (1960), 260-267; and above all in his critical edition of Jean de Montreuil's Opera, 1, Epistolario (Turin, 1963).
8 In her recent catalogue of Latin Petrarchan manuscripts still extant in French libraries Miss Elizabeth Pellegrin lists no less than one hundred which were either copied in France in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, or owned by Frenchmen during the same period; it is probable that even more of the manuscripts in her catalogue were owned by Frenchmen in that period, but this cannot be established with certitude; see Manuscrits de Pétrarque dans les bibliotheques de France (Padua, 1966)Google Scholar, repr. from Italia medioevale e umanistica, 4 (1961);6 (1963);7 (1964). It would be enlightening to know how many manuscripts of Boccaccio's and Salutati's works were copied or owned in France during the same period.
9 For example, Novati, , Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, III, 71, n. 1.Google Scholar
10 For information about Jean de Montreuil, consult the works of Ornato, Simone, and Coville cited in n. 7.
11 Coluccio Salutati, Epistolario, ed. F. Novati, III, 74, 143; unless otherwise stated, future references to Salutati will be to this edition of his letters.
12 III, 145; ibid., n. 2; Jean de Montreuil, Epistolario, pp. 131-132.
13 At the University of Paris Montreuil studied in the Faculty of Arts, but apparently never enrolled in the Faculty of Theology; see Combes, A., Jean de Montreuil et le chancelier Gerson (Paris, 1942), p. 15.Google Scholar For some reason Coville suspected that the title of'Doctor' which precedes Montreuil's name in a list of participants at the Council of Constance must have been usurped (Gontier et Pierre Col et Vhumanisme en France au temps de Charles VI, p. 73). Study of Montreuil's correspondence has recently led Ornato to conclude, however, that the title was most likely genuine; the thorough knowledge of logic which the letters reveal indicates that Montreuil had completed advanced university studies. He was perhaps a Doctor of Arts; see Ornato, ‘La prima fortuna del Petrarca in Francia', Studifrancesi, 5 (1961), 214.
14 Montreuil, Jean de, Epistolario, p. 132 Google Scholar; Novati, Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, III, 145, n. 5.
15 Epistolario, p. 160.
16 See, for example, pp. 132, 141, 143, 160, 227, 275 of his Epistolario.
17 I primi umanisti e le tradizioni dei classici latini (Fribourg, 1953), p. 29 Google Scholar; cf.his important recent article ‘La bibliotheque de Petrarque et les bibliothèques médiévales de France et de Flandre', in L'humanisme médiéval dans les littératures romanes du XIIe au XIVe Siéele (Paris, 1964).
18 Ullman bases his statement about Abelard, and in fact his statements about all the writers whom he says Salutati contemned, upon one text of Coluccio's correspondence (III, 83-84), a text which is difficult to interpret, and which we will have occasion to discuss later.
19 Pétrarque et Vhumanisme (Paris, 1907), 11, 219.
20 De Nolhac records many of the marginal glosses jotted by Petrarch in this manuscript; see op. cit., Excursus vi. Not a few scholars have expressed surprise on discovering that the Italian poet apparently did have a genuine admiration for the writing of Abelard; see, for example, De Nolhac, II, 219, 223.
21 Like Salutati and the other Italian Renaissance humanists, all of these men were famous in their own day, amongst other things, for their many volumes of Latin correspondence; see Novati, in, 83, n. 2. Modern research on writers like John of Salisbury and Hildebert of Lavardin is constantly revealing more and more clearly their eminent position as men of letters in the classical tradition.
22 ‘… qui sibi nimis de eloquentia blanditi sunt; non decet tamen ipsos priscis vel mediis illis dictatoribus comparare, a quibus tamen longe magis stilo quam temporibus discesserunt’ (III, 83-84).
23 Petrarca scilicet et Bocaccius, quorum opera cuncta, ni fallor, posteritas celebrabit: qui tamen quantum ab illis priscis differant facilitate dicendi nullum arbitror qui recte iudicare valeat ignorare’ (III, 84). Novati writes of this passage: ‘Preziosa dichiarazione in bocca di tale che alquant'anni prima non aveva esitato ad afFermare il Petrarca superiore a Cicerone ed a Virgilio.’ In a long letter to Poggio (rv, 126-145) Salutati endeavors to explain this seeming fluctuation in his stand regarding Petrarch's relative merits as a writer. He declares that since eloquence without Christian wisdom is only empty vanity, Petrarch, who possessed both, must be considered superior to Cicero; however as a prose stylist, Salutati writes, the palm must assuredly be given to Cicero. I believe it was this distinction that caused Salutati to use the somewhat ambiguous word ‘differant’ in the above quotation; because of their Christian wisdom, he would not say in the absolute sense that Petrarch and Boccaccio were inferior to Cicero and Virgil.
24 III, 83. This is the view also of C. Haskins, who writes in The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1928), p. 146 Google Scholar: ‘In general such collections (as the correspondence of Hildebert of Lavardin, John of Salisbury, and Peter of Blois) provided excellent models of Latin style … , and they are spoken of with respect by that finished secretary of a later age, Coluccio Salutati.'
25 Known or probable borrowings from Salisbury, as recorded by Novati, are found on the following pages of the Epistolario: II, 293, 418, 482; III, 44; IV, 41; concerning the attitude of the Florentine humanist towards Salisbury, Novati refers to the latter as an 'autore che il S. teneva in grande stima’ (II, 418, n. I).
26 Novati has pointed out that the second text which Salisbury and Salutati attributed to Plutarch was apocryphal. A transcription of Simon of Thebes's translation of the De remediis irae and several copies of Coluccio's revision of this translation are still extant in manuscript form; see B. L. Ullman, The Humanism of Coluccio Salutati, pp. 35,247. As for the quality of John of Salisbury's Latin style, modern scholars concur with the favorable opinion of Coluccio; see, for example, D. McGarry's introduction to The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury (Berkeley, 1955), p. XXV
27 See, for example, Haskins, C. H., The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, pp. 139, 142Google Scholar; Helene Wieruszowski, ‘Ars Dictaminis in the Time of Dante', Medievalia et humanistica, I, (1943), 104-107; J. de Ghellinck, L'Essor de la litterature latine au XIIe siècle (Brussels, 1946,) II, 319-320.
28 ‘Et, ut infinitos Grecorum dimittam, nullane gloria divi Augustini, Hieronymi, patris Ambrosii vel nostri Gregorii, Hilarii Pictaviensis aut Bede et, ut ad ultimos veniam, Anselmi vel Bernardi et multorum aliorum, qui inter summos theologos claruerunt’ (rv, 141). It would be very interesting to know just whom Salutati had in mind when he penned the phrase ‘et multorum aliorum'. It is possible that he shortened his list in this way simply for the sake of brevity; he may also have done so to avoid irritating Poggio unnecessarily by obliging him to read the names of more medieval Northerners.
29 Ed. E. Garin (Florence, 1947), p. 188.
30 La coscienza, p. 80.
31 Clamanges, a well-known teacher of rhetoric at the University of Paris, and for several years secretary of Benedict xm at Avignon, is generally considered to have been the leader of the French humanistic circle which counted among its members Jean de Montreuil.
32 Marine, E. et Durand, U., Amplissima Collectio Veterum Scriptorum (Paris, 1724), 1, col. 1545-46.Google Scholar
33 Opera Omnia, ed. Lydius (Lugduni, Batavorum, 1613), pp. 24 ff.
34 La coscienza, p. 6o, n. 101.
35 Clamanges’ treatise may be found in Luc d'Achéry, Spicilegium (Paris, 1723), I, 473
36 Though this article is concerned specifically with Coluccio's attitude towards non- Italian medieval writers, it seems to me appropriate to speak here of his opinion and use of Aquinas, since the work and career of Aquinas are associated with the University of Paris rather than with the Italian intellectual scene, and since Aquinas was so highly representative of medieval scholasticism.
37 Commenting on the third chapter of Salutati's De nobilitate, Garin remarks (Florence, 1947, p. 347): ‘II Salutati attingeva senza dubbio a Cicerone, ma, ed e interessante sottolinearlo, teneva anche presente San Tommaso è ne traeva, più ancora che ispirazioni, testi e argomenti riprodotti alia lettera. Se si scorrono, nella prima secundae partis della Summa theologica, le quaestiones 90 e 91 sulle leggi, si ritrovano in gran parte le osservazioni del Salutati.'
38 Regarding Alberic of London, see Ullman, The Humanism ofColuccio Salutati, pp. 214, 237.
