Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (; 11 February 1380Date in Cav. Toneilli's ms Elogi delli uomini illustri Toscani, noted by William Shepherd, The Life of Poggio Bracciolini – 30 October 1459), usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He is noted for rediscovering and recovering many classical Latin manuscripts, mostly decaying and forgotten in German, Swiss, and French monastic libraries. His most celebrated finds are De rerum natura, the only surviving work by Lucretius, De architectura by Vitruvius, lost orations by Cicero such as Pro Sexto Roscio, Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, Statius' Silvae, Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae (Rerum gestarum Libri XXXI), and Silius Italicus's Punica, as well as works by several minor authors such as Frontinus' De aquaeductu, Nonius Marcellus, Probus, Flavius Caper, and Eutyches.
Birth and education Poggio di Guccio (the surname Bracciolini added during his career)Paolo Piccardi. "Alcuni contratti di Poggio Bracciolini" was born near Arezzo, in Tuscany, in the village of Terranuova, which in 1862 was renamed Terranuova Bracciolini in his honor.
Taken by his father to Florence to pursue the studies for which he appeared so apt, he studied Latin under the amanuensis Giovanni MalpaghinoSee page in Italian Wikipedia, https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Malpaghini?wprov=sfti1 of Ravenna, the friend and protégé of Petrarch. His distinguished abilities and his dexterity as a copyist of manuscripts brought him into early notice of the chief scholars of Florence; both Coluccio Salutati and Niccolò de' Niccoli befriended him. He studied notarial law, and, at the age of twenty-one he was received into the Florentine notaries' guild, the Arte dei giudici e notai.
Career and later life In October 1403, on high recommendations from Salutati and Leonardo Bruni ("Leonardo Aretino"), he entered the service of Cardinal Landolfo Maramaldo, Bishop of Bari, as his secretary, and a few months later he was invited to join the Chancery of Apostolic Briefs in the Roman Curia of Pope Boniface IX. Over 11 years, he served under four successive popes (1404–1415), first as scriptor (writer of official documents), soon moving up to abbreviator, then scriptor penitentiarius, and scriptor apostolicus. Under Martin V he reached the top rank of his office, as Apostolicus Secretarius, papal secretary. As such he functioned as a personal attendant (amanuensis) of the Pope, writing letters at his behest and taking dictation, with no formal registration of the briefs, but instead preserving copies. He was noted for his impressive knowledge of Latin, his book hand (which was widely regarded by contemporaries as extraordinarily elegant), and for being an occasional liaison with Florence, which involved him in legal and diplomatic work.
Throughout his 50 year career, Poggio served a total of seven popes: Boniface IX (1389–1404), Innocent VII (1404–1406), Gregory XII (1406–1415), Antipope John XXIII (1410–1415), Martin V (1417–1431), Eugenius IV (1431–1447), and Nicholas V (1447−1455). While he held his office in the Curia through that period, which saw the Councils of Constance (1414–1418), in the train of Pope John XXIII, and of Basel (1431–1449), and the final restoration of the papacy under Nicholas V (1447), he was never drawn to ecclesiastical life, even with its potential riches. In spite of his meager salary in the Curia, he remained a layman to the end of his life.
The greater part of Poggio's life was spent in attendance to his duties in the Roman Curia at Rome and the other cities the pope was constrained to move his court. Although he spent most of his adult life in his papal service, he considered himself a Florentine working for the papacy. He actively kept his links to Florence and remained in constant communication with his influential Florentine friends: Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), Niccolò de' Niccoli (1364–1437), Lorenzo de' Medici the elder (1395–1440), Leonardo Bruni (Chancellor, 1369–1444), Carlo Marsuppini ("Carlo Aretino", Chancellor, 1399–1453), and Cosimo de' Medici (1389–1464).
In England After Martin V was elected as the new pope in November 1417, Poggio, although not holding any office, accompanied his court to Mantua in late 1418, but, once there, decided to accept the invitation of Henry, Cardinal Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, to go to England. His five years spent in England, until returning to Rome in 1423, were the least productive of his career.David Rundle, "The Scribe Thomas Candour and the making of Poggio Bracciolini's English reputation", in English Manuscript Studies 1100–1700, xii (2005), pp. 1–25.
In Florence
Poggio resided in Florence during 1434−36 with Eugene IV. On the proceeds of a sale of a manuscript of Livy in 1434, he built a villa in the Valdarno, which he adorned with a collection of antique sculpture (notably a series of busts meant to represent thinkers and writers of antiquity), coins and inscriptions.
In December 1435, at age 56, Poggio left his long-term mistress and delegitimized the fourteen children he had had with her, marrying the teenage daughter of a noble Florentine family, Selvaggia dei Buondelmonti. In spite of the large age gap (Selvaggia was not yet 18), the marriage was a happy one, producing five sons and a daughter. Poggio wrote a spate of long letters to justify his move, and composed one of his famous dialogues, An seni sit uxor ducenda (Whether an old man should marry, 1436).A silver-gilt reliquary bust in the form of a mitred bishop, bearing Poggio's and his wife's arms, made to contain relics of Saint Lawrence in 1438 or 1439, is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (James J. Rorimer, 'A Reliquary Bust Made for Poggio Bracciolini" The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin New Series, 14.10 (June 1956), pp. 246−251)
Poggio also lived in Florence during the Council of Florence, from 1439 to 1442.
Relationship with Valla In February 1452, Poggio published a detailed critique of Lorenzo Valla and the Elegantiae, Valla's major work on Latin language and style, wherein he supported a critical use of Latin eruditio going beyond pure admiration and imitatio of the classics.Lodi Nauta, "Lorenzo Valla", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP, 2009) In the Elegantiae, Valla argued that the divinae litterae (biblical exegesis of the Judeo-Christian "sacred scriptures") could be subjected to the same philological criticism as the humanae litterae (profane classical Greek and Latin literature). Poggio held that humanism and theology were separate fields of inquiry, and labeled Valla's mordacitas (radical criticism) as dementia."Poggio concentrates all his literary skill on the task of leading Valla through a carnivalesque triumph whose itinerary goes from earth (the streets of imperial Rome) to the inferno (of Satan and his demons) to the Elysian fields of immortal heroes, and finally back on earth into Valla's miserable hut." Described in Salvatore I. Camporeale, "Poggio Bracciolini versus Lorenzo Valla: The Orationes in Laurentium Vallam" in Joseph Marino & Melinda Schlitt eds., Perspectives on Early Modern & Modern Intellectual History – Essays in Honor of Nancy S. Struever (Un. of Rochester Press, 2001) p. 27−48; which is an extension of a previous article in Italian, "Poggio Bracciolini contro Lorenzo Valla: Le Orationes in L. Vallam" in Poggio Bracciolini 1380–1980 (Firenze, 1982), p. 137−161 Poggio's series of five Orationes in Laurentium Vallam (re-labeled Invectivae by Valla) were countered, line by line, by Valla's Antidota in Pogium (1452−53).
In 1505, the Dutch humanist Erasmus discovered Lorenzo Valla's Adnotationes in Novum Testamentum (New Testament Notes), which encouraged him to pursue the textual criticism of the Holy Scriptures, contributing to Erasmus's reputation as the leading Dutch Renaissance humanist.Marvin Anderson, "Erasmus the Exegete" (1969), Concordia Theological Monthly 40 (11): 722–746. In his introduction, Erasmus declared his support of Valla's thesis against the invidia of envious scholars such as Poggio, whom he unfairly described as "a petty clerk so uneducated that even if he were not indecent he would still not be worth reading, and so indecent that he would deserve to be rejected by good men however learned he was."
Despite their public feud, Valla and Poggio later reconciled and became good friends at their prompting of the Italian humanist Filelfo, their mutual friend.
Later years and death After the death in April 1453 of his close friend Carlo Aretino, who had been the Chancellor of the Florentine Republic, Poggio was chosen as his replacement by Cosimo de' Medici, then the ruler of Florence. He retired from his 50 years of papal service, and returned to Florence to assume his new role. This coincided with the news of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans.
Poggio's last months were spent in the discharge of his prestigious Florentine office, conducting both private and public affairs, editing his correspondence for publication, and composing his history of Florence; died in 1459 before he finished the work.
He was buried in the church of Santa Croce. A statue by Donatello and a portrait by Antonio del Pollaiuolo were placed at the site. During his life, Poggio acquired properties around Florence and invested in the city enterprises with the Medici bank. At his death, his gross assets amounted to 8,500 florins, with only 137 families in Florence owning more capital. His wife, five sons and daughter all survived him.
Search for manuscripts After July 1415—Antipope John XXIII had been deposed by the Council of Constance and the Roman Pope Gregory XII had abdicated—the papal office remained vacant for two years, which gave Poggio some leisure time in 1416/17 for his pursuit of manuscript hunting. In the spring of 1416 (sometime between March and May), Poggio visited the baths at the German spa of Baden. In a long letter to Niccoli (p. 59−68) he reported his discovery of an "Epicurean" lifestyle—one year before finding Lucretius—where men and women bathe together, barely separated, in minimum clothing: "I have related enough to give you an idea what a numerous school of Epicureans is established in Baden. I think this must be the place where the first man was created, which the Hebrews call the garden of pleasure. If pleasure can make a man happy, this place is certainly possessed of every requisite for the promotion of felicity." (p. 66)
Poggio was marked by the passion of his teachers for books and writing, inspired by the first generation of Italian humanists centered around Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374), who had revived interest in the forgotten masterpieces of Livy and Cicero, Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) and Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406). Poggio joined the second generation of civic humanists forming around Salutati. Resolute in glorifying studia humanitatis (the study of "humanities", a phrase popularized by Leonardo Bruni), learning (studium), literacy (eloquentia), and erudition (eruditio) as the chief concern of man, Poggio ridiculed the folly of popes and princes, who spent their time in wars and ecclesiastical disputes instead of reviving the lost learning of antiquity.
The literary passions of the learned Italians in the new Humanist Movement, which were to influence the future course of both Renaissance and Reformation, were epitomized in the activities and pursuits of this self-made man, who rose from the lowly position of scribe in the Roman Curia to the privileged role of apostolic secretary.
He became devoted to the revival of classical studies amid conflicts of popes and antipopes, cardinals and councils, in all of which he played an official part as first-row witness, chronicler and (often unsolicited) critic and adviser.