16

DAVID MARSH

Cicero in the Renaissance

Cicero and Petrarch

Francesco Petrarca (1304–74), who is often called the father of human-
ism, devoted most of his life to the study of Latin literature and confessed
particular devotion to Cicero from his earliest years:

From early childhood, when everyone else was poring over Prosper or Aesop, I
brooded over Cicero’s books, whether through natural instinct or the urgings
of my father, a great admirer of that author.1

Besides assembling the most complete text of Livy available, he made

two notable discoveries of texts by Cicero. In 1333, while travelling in
Liège, he found a text of Cicero’s oration Pro Archia, the defence of a
Greek poet that he later cited on the occasion of his poetic coronation in
1341.2 He also cites the work in his invective Contra medicum 27, in order
to assert the superiority of poets over physicians. In his list of favourite
books, probably written in 1333, Petrarch includes some dozen Ciceronian
works.3
Then, in 1345, Petrarch visited the cathedral chapter library in Verona,
where he found a codex containing Cicero’s letters Ad Atticum, Ad Quintum

1
Petrarch 1992: vol. ii, 600. The original Latin of Seniles 16.1 is cited in Rüegg 1946:
8–10: ‘Siquidem ab ipsa pueritia, quando ceteri omnes, aut Prospero inhiant, aut Esopo,
ego libris Ciceronis incubui, seu nature instinctu, seu parentis hortatu, qui auctoris illius
venerator ingens fuit.’ Prosper of Aquitaine (379–455) was a follower of Augustine and a
historian whose epigrams were used as an elementary Latin text.
2
See Godi 1970 and Gensini 1980.
3
For the date, see Ullman 1923: 21–38; and cf. Schmitt 1988: 779: ‘Petrarch could include
in his list of favourite books – written while he was still young – Republic vi, the
Tusculans, De natura deorum, Paradoxa, De inventione, De oratore (not complete) and
speeches rare and common, as well as the spurious Rhetorica ad Herennium.’ For
Petrarch’s use of Cicero, see Nolhac 1907: vol. i, 213–68; Hinds 2004; Auhagen et al.
2005.
306

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 Cicero in the Renaissance

fratrem and Ad Brutum, of which he made a copy.4 Learning how Cicero

had thrown himself into the political fray precipitated by Caesar, Petrarch
reproved the idealist with having abandoned his philosophical detachment.5
In a Latin epistle to the Roman orator (Fam. 24.3), he cited the words of Bru-
tus, who in a letter reproached him for his friendship with Octavian. Some
months later, after Petrarch had recovered from his initial shock, he wrote a
second letter (Fam. 24.4) praising Cicero’s genius – which had made possible
his own literary achievements – while censuring his character.6 A genera-
tion later, Petrarch’s first letter inspired responses from two men of letters
in Padua: the prelate Francesco Zabarella (1360–1417) and the humanist
Pierpaolo Vergerio (1370–1444). In 1394, at Padua Vergerio wrote a letter
in Cicero’s name, in which he insisted that the orator-citizen is obliged to
take part in politics.7 And in a letter of 1396, he wrote that Cicero surpasses
all orators and poets in eloquence, although in his 1402 educational treatise
De ingenuis moribus he only names the orator once in a citation.8
Petrarch’s Christian view of Cicero is evident in his personal manifesto
De sui ipsius et multorum aliorum ignorantia 56–84, in which he discusses
at length the religious beliefs espoused in Cicero’s De natura deorum.9
Although he praises the Roman’s sagacity in perceiving the divine order
of the universe, Cicero’s endorsement of polytheism draws vehement con-
demnation. Nevertheless, Petrarch admired and imitated one Ciceronian
text dear to the Middle Ages – the Somnium Scipionis (Dream of Scipio)
from Book 6 of De republica. Cicero’s description of a prophetic dream
inspired the lengthy dream of Scipio in the first two books of Petrarch’s epic
Africa. And like Dante before him, Petrarch echoed Cicero’s heavenly view
of the earth and its climatic zones in his Africa, Secretum and De remediis
utriusque fortune.10

Further discoveries and editions

Beginning in the 1390s, Antonio Loschi (1365–1441) produced a series of
Latin commentaries on eleven of Cicero’s orations. In 1392, the corpus of
Cicero’s correspondence was nearly doubled when the Milanese chancel-
lor Pasquino de’ Capelli discovered a codex of Cicero’s Familiares in the
4
The Veronese codex does not survive, but the 1392 Milan copy made for Coluccio
Salutati and later emended by Salutati, Niccoli, and Bruni is Mediceus 49.18: Reynolds
1983: 136–7.
5 6
Witt 2000: 279–80. On these letters, see Hinds 2004.
7
McManamon 1996: 52–9; cf. Schmitt 1988: 420; Witt 2000: 384–6.
8
Kallendorf 2002: 45: ‘as Cicero says, What a happy family books make!’ The quotation
is from Cic. Fam. 9.1. On this passage, cf. Witt 2000: 375–7.
9 10
Cf. Petrarca 2003: 274–309; cf. Witt 2000: 258–9. Marsh 2009: 215–17.
307

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 david marsh

chapter library of Vercelli, and sent a copy to his friend Coluccio Salutati,
the chancellor of Florence.11 Salutati also possessed a codex of the letters
Ad Atticum (Mediceus 49.18) These more formal letters soon inspired the
schoolteacher Gasparino Barzizza (c. 1360–1431), who lectured on Cicero
at Padua and Milan, to compile a Liber epistolarum, which became the first
book published in France (Paris: Johann Heylin, 1470). Barzizza, whose
pupils in Padua included Leon Battista Alberti and Francesco Filelfo, lectured
annually on Cicero’s De oratore, and his treatise On Imitation (1413–17)
recommends Cicero as the principal prose model for imitation.12
Meanwhile, Poggio Bracciolini, a papal secretary attending the Council
of Constance (1414–18) was combing Swiss monasteries for lost classical
works. In addition to unearthing texts by Columella, Lucretius, Manilius,
Quintilian, Statius and Valerius Flaccus, he found ten of Cicero’s orations
as well as the commentary of Asconius Pedianus. Shortly thereafter, in 1421
Gherardo Landriani found Cicero’s three principal works on rhetoric –
Brutus, Orator and De oratore – in the cathedral library at Lodi.
As the enthusiasm for humanistic studies spread in the early Quattro-
cento, teachers steered their students towards Cicero. In his treatise The
Study of Literature (c. 1424), Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444) even commends
the Roman orator to women with a taste for secular letters.13 Exemplary
new schools, such as those opened by Guarino of Verona in Ferrara and
Vittorino da Feltre in Mantua, made Cicero a cornerstone of the Latin
curriculum. Educational theory did not lag behind, and fifteenth-century
treatises often celebrate the orator as the master of Roman prose. In his De
ordine docendi et studendi (Programme of Teaching and Learning) of 1459,
Battista Guarino (the son of the famed educator) recommends Cicero as a
supreme model of Latin style, commending his epistles for their elegance,
his rhetorical works for their system and his other books for their moral
philosophy.14
The first books printed in Italy included Cicero’s De oratore, De officiis
and Paradoxa Stoicorum, all printed at Subiaco in 1465 by Sweynheym and
Pannartz, who also printed Donatus and Lactantius in that year. We have
some 300 incunabula of Cicero, including 64 editions of De officiis, 65 of De
senectute and De amicitia, and 69 of Paradoxa Stoicorum.15 The selection

11
The MSS survive in the Laurentian Library as Mediceus 49.9 and 49.7: see Reynolds
1983: 138–9; Witt 2000: 320–1.
12
Mercer 1979; Witt 2000: 462–5.
13
Kallendorf 2002: 99: ‘A woman, on the other hand, who enjoys secular literature will
choose Cicero, a man – Good God! – so eloquent! So rich in expression! So polished! So
unique in every kind of excellence!’
14 15
Kallendorf 2002: 285, 291. Hankins and Palmer 2008: 42.
308

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 Cicero in the Renaissance

indicates that Quattrocento readers were primarily interested in Cicero’s

discussion of rhetoric and in his popularizing of moral philosophy.16

Cicero and the humanities

Cicero’s greatest dialogue, De oratore, concerned his own profession, that of
public speaker and advocate. Besides his exposition of the outlines of classi-
cal rhetoric, Cicero’s work paints an idealized picture of the Roman nobility
and their largely Greek culture. Ever since the development of rhetoric by
Greek sophists, dissension arose between theorists who regarded argument
as a mere arsenal of persuasive tricks and those who insisted on the ora-
tor’s true competence in many fields. Siding with the latter, Cicero promotes
the notion of what the Renaissance humanists would call the ‘universal
man’, so that the theorist of painting Leon Battista Alberti would insist, in
Book 3 of his De pictura (1436), on a culture of learning for artists as well
as for scholars.
For those seeking a portrait of Cicero the man, the Greek biographer
Plutarch was a welcome source of information. His Vita Ciceronis was
translated twice in the early Quattrocento: by Iacopo Angeli in 1401, and
by Leonardo Bruni in 1412, who paired it with the Vita Demosthenis.17
Dissatisfied with Plutarch’s treatment, Bruni composed his own biography
the following year, which he titled Cicero Novus sive Ciceronis Vita (The
New Cicero or Cicero’s Life).18 In his preface to Niccolò Niccoli, he calls
Cicero ‘the parent and prince of our literature’ (parens et princeps litterarum
nostrarum), and in discussing Cicero’s translations from Greek he notes that
the loss of the Roman’s versions of Demosthenes and Aeschines moved him
to compose his own.19

Cicero the rhetorician

During the Middle Ages, the Carolingian Renaissance and the subsequent
rise of ars dictaminis caused Cicero to be valued above all for his writings
on rhetoric. As Zieliński noted, while many other important Ciceronian
texts perished, the rhetorical corpus (including the anonymous Rhetorica
ad Herennium) survived whole.20 In the legal and notarial culture of late
medieval Italy, Cicero gains even more prominence. Dante’s teacher Brunetto
Latini translated part of the De inventione with the title Rettorica (1260),
and a few years later also made Tuscan versions of the ‘Caesarian’ orations

16 17 18
Schmitt 1988: 769 n. 17. Giustiniani 1961: 38. Bruni 1996: 411–99.
19 20
Bruni 1996: 418, 472. Zieliński 1912: 131.
309

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 david marsh

Pro Ligario, Pro rege Deiotaro and Pro Marcello.21 Cicero’s oration Pro
Ligario enjoyed special popularity, perhaps because of Plutarch’s glowing
account of its success before Caesar (Cic. 39).22 Latini’s translation was fol-
lowed by the commentaries of Antonio Loschi (1395), George of Trebizond
(1438–40) and Giorgio Merula (1478).23 The Byzantine scholar George of
Trebizond (1395–1472) also composed an influential Rhetoric (1433–34)
that drew heavily on Ciceronian concepts.24 In his 1459 Program of Teach-
ing and Learning, Battista Guarino recommended as the best introduction
to rhetoric the treatise Ad Herennium, which was thought at the time to be
a work of Cicero.25
As printing diffused the culture of humanism, Cicero the rhetorician
became ever more prominent. A recent bibliography lists over 300 edi-
tions and commentaries on Cicero’s rhetorical works published between
1460 and 1700.26 And in the second half of the sixteenth century, Jesuit
educators made Cicero the paramount model of oratory. Here are the rec-
ommendations for the teacher of humanities as outlined in the Jesuit Ratio
studiorum (Plan of Study) of 1599:

For the knowledge of the language, which consists especially in propriety

and abundance of expression, the daily lessons should be devoted to teaching
Cicero alone of the orators, usually through those books that contain his moral
philosophy; Caesar, Sallust, Livy, Curtius, from the historians, and any others
like these; from the poets, especially Vergil, setting aside the Eclogues and
the fourth book of the Aeneid . . . The brief summary overview of the rules
of rhetoric from Cyprian will be given in the second semester, of course. At
that time, Cicero’s philosophy being set aside, some of the easier speeches,
like the Pro Lege Manilia, Pro Archia, Pro Marcello and the others delivered
to Caesar can be taken . . . This will be the schedule: In the first hour in the
morning, Marcus Tullius and prosody should be recited from memory.27

21
Witt 2000: 183–5; 201–5.
22
The Jesuit Ratio studiorum of 1599 would particularly recommend the ‘speeches
delivered to Caesar’.
23
Classen 1993: 76–80. On Loschi, see Viti 2006.
24
For the influence of George’s rhetoric, see Monfasani 1976: 318–37; for his works
about Cicero, see Monfasani 1984: 342–477.
25
Kallendorf 2002: 291: ‘No text is more useful or convenient for learning this discipline
than the Rhetorica ad Herennium of Cicero, where all the parts of rhetoric are set forth,
perfectly and succcinctly.’
26
Green and Murphy 2006: 107–38.
27
Pavur 2005: 166–7. The original Latin reads as follows: ‘Ad cognitionem linguae, quae
in proprietate maxime et copia consistit, in quotidianis praelectionibus explicetur; ex
oratoribus unus Cicero iis fere libris, qui philosophiam de moribus continent; ex
historicis Caesar, Salustius, Livius, Curtius, et si qui sunt similes; ex poetis praecipue
Virgilius, exceptis Eclogis et quarto Aeneidos . . . Praeceptorum rhetoricae brevis summa
310

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 Cicero in the Renaissance

The volume and variety of Cicero’s works enhanced his popularity. Thus in
a study of editions of the rhetorica and school curricula from 1500 to 1700,
Joseph S. Freedman notes that anthologies of Cicero’s works offered edu-
cators a versatile range of rhetorical texts both theoretical and practical.28
Among the notable anthologies of Ciceronian passages were the Ciceroni-
anus of Petrus Ramus (Frankfurt 1530) and the Ex M. T. Cicerone insignium
sententiarum elegans et perutile compendium of Petrus Lagnerius (Paris
1543).29

Cicero the philosopher

Before the era of Scholasticism, a minor text by Cicero played a surpris-
ingly important role in late medieval Italy, for his Topica were a principal
school text used to teach lawyers logic and argumentation.30 With the rise
of Renaissance humanism, this text was eventually eclipsed by the philo-
sophical works that Cicero had expressly written for a wide readership – his
dialogues.31
In his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), David Hume
distinguishes between two types of philosophers. The moral philosophers
view people as actors in society and seek to teach their fellows the ways
to happiness and virtue, whereas the theoreticians consider humankind in
its rational aspect and attempt to discover hidden truths for the edification
of the learned. The former thinkers, Hume concludes, will always be more
popular than the latter, so that ‘the fame of Cicero flourishes at present; but
that of Aristotle is utterly decayed’. Hume’s judgement had been anticipated
by many Renaissance humanists, beginning with Petrarch’s preference for
the Roman’s eloquence over the Greek’s abstractions.32
Adapting the model of the Greek dialogue, Cicero wrote a dozen works
expounding Greek philosophy; and to Renaissance humanists from Petrarch
onwards Cicero’s philosophical works offered more than a survey of

ex Cypriano, secundo scilicet semestri, tradetur; quo tempore, omissa philosophia

Ciceronis, faciliores aliquae eiusdem orationes, ut pro lege Manilia, pro Archia, pro
Marcello, ceteraeque ad Caesarem habitae sumi poterunt . . . Divisio temporis haec erit:
Prima hora matutina memoriter recitetur M. Tullius et ars metrica apud decurionem.’
28
Freedman 1986.
29
Green and Murphy 2006: 365 (Ramus), 259 (Lagnerius: some thirty editions between
1543 and 1584).
30
Witt 2000: 353; Reinhardt 2003. In fact, the popularity of the Topica is perhaps not
surprising, since it is based on the text by Aristotle, whose works in translation enjoyed
a great fortune in the late Middle Ages.
31
On Cicero’s dialogues, see Marsh 1980 and Powell 1995a.
32
Hankins 2007: 1; Petrarca 2003: 314–17.
311

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 david marsh

Hellenistic doctrines: they provided a model for the secular discussion of

virtue and happiness in what might be called a civic forum. In the Ital-
ian Quattrocento, Cicero appeared as an icon of civic virtue in pictorial
sequences of Uomini Famosi or Famous Men.33 While in his De divinatione
(On Divination) Cicero reviews his achievement in making Greek thought
available to a Roman readership, it is his Tusculan Disputations that offer
the most important statements of his philosophical credo. Thus, as a practi-
cal Roman citizen, Cicero concentrates on the ethical branch of philosophy –
rather than logic or natural science. In a famous passage of the Tusculan
Disputations (5.10), he praises Socrates for having brought philosophy back
down to earth, preferring ethics to science and metaphysics. To humanists
disaffected by the a priori dialectic of the Schoolmen, Cicero’s word must
have sounded a rallying cry.
Cicero’s philosophical works offered many elements that attracted Renais-
sance humanists. As a mediator of Greek thought to a Latin readership, he
presents doctrines in balanced debates that inspired humanists to apply his
method to ancient schools like the Stoics and Epicureans. With his rhetori-
cal training and its emphasis on arguing both sides of a case – in utramque
partem disserere – Cicero was drawn to Academic scepticism, and rejected
blind allegiance to traditional authorities.34 In another celebrated passage
of the Tusculan Disputations (1.10), Cicero censures the dogmatism of the
Pythagoreans, who cited their legendary founder, saying ipse dixit (‘the
Master said so’) as the definitive authority on any question. From Petrarch
onwards, humanists appropriated this critique, and turned it against adver-
saries who made a similar appeal to an incontrovertible Aristotle, whom
they simply called ‘the Philosopher’. (In Cicero’s day, Peripatetic philosophy
was not in vogue, as he notes in his preface to the Topica, for much of Aris-
totle was unknown at Rome until Cicero’s own lifetime, when the books
that Sulla brought back after the capture of Athens in 86 began to circulate.
In fact, the Roman orator cites Aristotle mainly for his writings on rhetoric,
including the production of arguments on both sides of a question.35 ) In the
event, humanist allusions to Aristotle were often directed against ecclesias-
tical authorities and canonic dogmas.

33
Jones and Kilpatrick 2007: 377–9.
34
See A. E. Douglas in Dorey 1965: 135–70, at 143: ‘Cicero, by temperament and by
training as orator and lawyer, was always ready to see both sides of a question. In his
writings he often attacks dogmatism, and is scathing about those who accept the first
view they hear or swallow uncritically the dicta of some authority (cf. Nat. D. 1.10).’
35
De oratore 3.78: ‘sin aliquis exstiterit aliquando, qui Aristotelio more de omnibus rebus
in utramque partem possit dicere et in omni causa duas contrarias orations . . . is sit
verus, is perfectus, is solus orator.’ On Cicero’s rhetorical interpretation of Aristotle, see
Long 1995a.
312

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 Cicero in the Renaissance

Rejecting Scholastic argument and rigid dialectic, humanists found in

Cicero’s rhetorical approach to moral questions a justification for their own
eclectic writings. When in the preface to the Tusculan Disputations (1.7–
8) Cicero professes to treat philosophical topics in a rhetorical manner,
he affords justification for much of Renaissance ethical discourse. Thus,
Lorenzo Valla, one of the more profoundly original humanists, argued
for the superiority of rhetoric to logic in debating moral issues.36 At
the same time, he portrayed Stoicism as a cloak for supercilious piety,
thus distancing himself (like Petrarch) from Cicero’s predilection for the
sect.
As noted above, Cicero’s philosophical works were some of the first books
printed in Italy, with the moral works – De officiis, De amicitia and De senec-
tute – taking pride of place. As humanists made vernacular translations of
Cicero, these same works were usually the first to claim attention, so that
between 1481 and 1561 they had been printed in English, French, German,
Italian and Spanish, as well as the Paradoxa Stoicorum and Tusculan Dis-
putations. The philosophical corpus also attracted learned commentators,
whose work has not been adequately studied.37
Cicero also inspired imitations and adaptations. For example, the Flo-
rentine Matteo Palmieri (1406–75) composed an Italian dialogue in three
books titled Della vita civile (1431–8), which draws heavily on Cicero’s De
inventione, De officiis and Tusculan Disputations, as well as on Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics.38
An interesting chapter in the story of Cicero’s fortune involves the role
of his Academica as a source for the scepticism that characterized the
Greek thinkers known as the New Academy (c. 269–87 bc). The Aca-
demica survives in single books taken from two separate versions of the
work, which were known to Petrarch and many Quattrocento humanists,
but aroused little interest in sceptical thought. The first figure to use Cicero
to outline Academic scepticism was the Sienese humanist Francesco Patrizi
(1413–94), who in a letter to his friend Achille Petrucci outlines the his-
tory of the Academy, using Diogenes Laertius as well as Cicero.39 Dur-
ing the sixteenth century, more than a dozen notable scholars – including
Victorius, Camerarius, Turnebus and Lambinus – wrote commentaries on
the Academica; and Daniele Barbaro (1514–70) and Francesco Robortello
(1516–67) wrote specific Latin tracts on the subject. This interest culmi-
nated in the work of the German scholar Joannes Rosa (1532–71), whose
36
Nauta 2009: 234–5.
37
Hankins and Palmer 2008: 46–7 list some seventy printed Renaissance commentaries on
Cicero’s thirteen philosophical works.
38 39
Kraye 1997: 149–72. Schmitt 1972: 49–51; Patrizi’s text is printed at 171–7.
313

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 david marsh

lengthy Commentarius, printed in 1571, deals with Cicero’s De finibus and

Academica.40
In Paris, the work gained new prominence as a number of thinkers, led by
Petrus Ramus (1515–72), rejecting the dominant school of Aristotelianism
with its dogmatic assertiveness, found Academic scepticism useful to their
cause. In 1547 and 1550, Audomarus Talaeus (Omer Talon: c. 1510–62)
wrote commentaries on the two versions of Cicero’s dialogue, accompanied
by his introductory essay Academica. A counter-attack was mounted by
Petrus Gallandus (1510–59), who in 1551 composed an oration defending
the University of Paris from the ‘New Academy of Petrus Ramus’ (Pro schola
Parisiensi contra novam academiam Petri Rami oratio).41
After the Reformation, Academic scepticism naturally aroused the suspi-
cion of Catholic thinkers, whose dogmatism rejected what they perceived
as atheistic doubt. In 1558, the Italian Giulio Castellani (1528–86) printed
a treatise against Cicero’s Academica (Adversus Marci Tullii Ciceronis aca-
demicas quaestiones disputatio). In this work, dedicated to the papal legate
Cardinal Girolamo Dandino, Castellani divides all philosophers into sceptics
and dogmatists, and predictably condemns Ciceronian probabilism in favour
of Aristotelian certitude.42 In 1597, the Cypriot Jason de Nores asserted that
Cicero alone combines rhetorical eloquence with methodical treatment, and
interpreted the Roman’s dialogues as covering the same topics as Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics.43

Cicero the model of Latinity

Since antiquity, Cicero had been cited as the paramount model of Latin
prose. During the dawn of humanism, he was praised by Petrarch and Salu-
tati, but neither of them strove to imitate Ciceronian prose. As Latinity
improved in the course of the Quattrocento, various humanists often cited
the influence of Cicero as a major factor in the rebirth of eloquence; but,
again, no-one advocated adopting the Roman orator as the sole model. The
humanist Biondo Flavio (1392–1463) includes an interesting account of the
revival of Latin eloquence in his Italia Illustrata (1448–51). In a discussion
of Ravenna (6.25–9), he traces the succession of Italian humanists from
Petrarch to Giovanni Malpaghini (of Ravenna) to his own Quattrocento

40 41 42
Schmitt 1972: 134–57. Schmitt 1972: 92–102. Schmitt 1972: 109–33.
43
Schmitt 1988: 326: ‘Nores felt obliged to defend Cicero’s moral works by
demonstrating that they covered the same territory as the Nicomachean Ethics. He
therefore argued that De finibus corresponded to book i, De officiis to books ii–vi, the
Tusculan Disputations to book vii, and De amicitia to books viii and ix. For book x,
however, he offered no Ciceronian equivalent.’
314

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 Cicero in the Renaissance

contemporaries. In passing, he places great emphasis on the rediscovery and

imitation of Cicero’s works, specifically the letters and De oratore, Orator
and Brutus.44
With the diffusion of printed texts, the student of Latin naturally faced a
puzzling array of texts to study and imitate; and various humanists began
to counsel a restricted diet of Ciceronian works. By the late Quattrocento,
battlelines were being drawn up between rigid Ciceronians and the partisans
of eclectic imitation. News from the battlefield was quickly reported in print,
heightening the conflict. Between 1494 and 1532, the most notable skir-
mishes took the form of letters exchanged between various Italian humanists:
Angelo Poliziano and Paolo Cortesi, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola and
Pietro Bembo, and Giovambattista Giraldi Cinzio and Celio Calcagnini.45
Meanwhile, the debate spread north of the Alps. The assertion that Cicero
alone was the highest model of eloquence provoked the Dutch human-
ist Erasmus to compose a Latin dialogue, Ciceronianus (1528), which
impugns the adoption of a single model as an absurdity, echoing Poliziano’s
remarks on the subject. Many Italians were incensed by Erasmus’ irrev-
erent critiques, since behind his stylistic nonconformity they sensed that
there lurked some form of religious heterodoxy. In Italy, meanwhile, the
scholar Nizolius (Mario Nizzoli 1498–1566) published his Observationes
in Ciceronem (Observations on Cicero) in 1535; a revision of this work
was repeatedly printed as Nizolius, sive Thesaurus Ciceronianus (Nizolius,
or A Ciceronian Thesaurus) from 1558 onwards.46 In 1532, Lilio Gregorio
Giraldi commented on the debate, and attempted to resolve it by proposing
that beginning students read Cicero alone for a couple of years, and then
expand their reading to other prose writers. His compromise was subse-
quently adopted by Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) in his Epistolica Institutio
(1591), and soon endorsed by the Jesuit educator Antonio Possevino.47
The epistolary debates centre on several questions, especially the contrast
between imitation and invention. Pico’s letter is titled libellus de imitatione,
or little book on imitation; and Calcagnini’s letter is super imitatione com-
mentatio, or treatise on imitation. Those arguing for diverse models observe
that nature creates people with different inclinations and talents. Those
advancing the cause of Ciceronianism assert that one should imitate the
very best model, whom they identify as Cicero. Gradually a sort of compro-
mise emerged as humanists proposed that beginners imitate Cicero closely,
but read more widely as they mature.
44
Text and translation in White 2005: 300–9. See the comments of Viti 1999: 81–8 and
Witt 2000: 340–2.
45 46
DellaNeva 2007: vii–xxxix (introduction). Green and Murphy 2006: 322–3.
47
DellaNeva 2007: 190–211.
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 david marsh

The Ciceronian debate spread in the first half of the Cinquecento, thus
participating in a larger trend in Italian literary culture. For the proliferation
of standard editions of canonical authors greatly promoted a literary classi-
cism based on the imitation of recognized models. Such classicism extended
to the vernacular, and Pietro Bembo, the editor of Petrarch’s Canzoniere
(1501) proposed a ‘classical’ standard in Italian based on the adoption of
Boccaccio and Petrarch as Italian parallels to Cicero and Virgil. In fact, the
Venetian Bembo’s Prose della volgar lingua (1525), which endorses adher-
ence to Trecento models, is couched in rather artificial Tuscan prose. As for
Latin authors, a fixed language – some would say ‘dead’ language – afforded
a more stable target for imitation.
Interestingly, the debate concerning Cicero also addressed the epistolary
form, for which the Roman orator furnished a central model. To be sure,
readers perused letters by other Romans, such as the epistolary sermons
of Seneca and the calculated missives of Pliny the Younger. But Cicero’s
letters offer an unmatched variety, ranging from the colloquial notes to
Atticus and Brutus to the more elevated Epistulae ad Familiares.48 As noted
above, Justus Lipsius recommended Cicero as the sole model for beginners
in letter-writing. In the eighteenth century, Edward Gibbon would observe
that ‘Cicero’s Epistles may in particular afford the models of every form of
correspondence.’49

Conclusion
Cicero’s influence on the Renaissance is central to the movement we call
humanism. In three particular areas he furnished a model for the new edu-
cator and man of letters. First, his philosophical works were now read
with interest, both as an alternative to the Aristotelianism of the univer-
sities and as a precedent for the gentlemanly discussion of ethical theories
and moral questions. Second, and partly in connection with the new vogue
of the philosophica, the literary dialogue as a forum of learned discourse
enjoyed a remarkable flourishing that reflected the new socialized context of
learning, which rejected abstract treatises in favour of intellectual exchange
and debate.50 Third, humanists from Petrarch onwards cultivated the epis-
tle, which in antiquity was conceived of as ‘half a dialogue’ and for which
Cicero’s assembled books offered a wide range of stylistic and thematic
material to study and imitate. And the adoption of Cicero as a school text in
48
For the use of Cicero’s epistles in the classroom, see Grendler 1989: 222–34; Black
2001: 252–5.
49
Gibbon 1994: 104; cf. the similar endorsement of Battista Guarino above, n. 14.
50
On the Quattrocento dialogue, see Marsh 1980.
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 Cicero in the Renaissance

many fields by groups as influential as the Jesuits guaranteed his centrality

in humanities curricula for centuries to come.

Further reading
Cicero’s central influence in Western letters receives classic treatments in
Zieliński 1912 and Dorey 1965. His predominant position in Latin edu-
cation is examined in complementary studies by Grendler 1989 and Black
2001; while his often dictatorial role as a model of Latin prose, especially
in Italy, is illuminated by Sabbadini 1885 and DellaNeva 2007. The fortune
of Cicero’s philosophical works is examined in Schmitt 1972, Marsh 1980
and Powell 1995a.

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