During the last years of his life, Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), former Apostolic Secretary and Chancellor of Florence, was working on a long text that he characterized, in a letter written in 1458, as lacking a well-defined structure. This was most probably his history of the people of Florence (Historiae Florentini populi, the title given in Jacopo’s dedication copy to Frederick of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino), revised and published posthumously by Poggio’s son, Jacopo Bracciolini (1442-1478). Contrary to what is often assumed, Poggio’s treatise was not a continuation, nor even a complement, to Leonardo Bruni’s (1370-1444) official history of Florence. It concentrates on the most recent history of Florence from the fourteenth-century conflicts between Florence and Milan through Florentine expansion in Tuscany and finally reaching the mid-fifteenth century. This article will study the genesis and fortune of the work in the context of Poggio’s literary output and the manuscript evidence from the mid-fifteenth century until the first printed edition of the Latin-language text by G.B. Recanati in 1715.
University of Jyväskylä, Finland - ORCID: 0000-0001-5410-9640
Chapter Title
The Historiae Florentini populi by Poggio Bracciolini. Genesis and Fortune of an Alternative History of Florence
Authors
Outi Merisalo
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-6453-968-3.05
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2020
Copyright Information
© 2020 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Poggio Bracciolini and the Re(dis)covery of Antiquity: Textual and Material Traditions
Book Subtitle
Proceedings of the Symposium Held at Bryn Mawr College on April 8-9, 2016
Editors
Roberta Ricci
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
220
Publication Year
2020
Copyright Information
© 2020 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-6453-968-3
ISBN Print
978-88-6453-967-6
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-6453-968-3
Series Title
Atti
Series ISSN
2239-3307
Series E-ISSN
2704-6230