8. Transmitting Knowledge; Recasting Roman History
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In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the lenses through which ancient history could be assimilated and interpreted multiplied. Perceptive writers like Petrarch, already sensing a disconnect between the world of Greco-Roman civilization and the present, believed that a continent-wide cultural decline had set in, rendering things ripe for rebirth. Even as he worked to enshrine Italian as a worthy literary language, Petrarch strove to imitate the style and substance of Roman historians, writing in impeccable, classical Latin. Just as humanist scribes and illuminators sought out eleventh- and twelfth-century manuscripts as they attempted to reproduce an “ancient” book design suitable for classical content, so too did authors and compilers continue to draw from the intermediate age, despite its shortcomings. The historical miscellany, an ever- popular book-type, could include early medieval renderings of late antique texts, such as Paul the Deacon’s Historia romana, alongside recent literary forgeries of ancient Athenian orations, a contemporary letter by Leonardo Bruni (ca. 1370–1444) on the value of studying the classics, and a fourth-century Greek apologia for studying pagan works of literature, newly translated into Latin. An increasingly sophisticated readership, at least in the Italian cities, fed a demand for pristine new copies of classical texts by the likes of Cicero, Sallust, and Horace, many of which had become newly relevant to humanist audiences. Soon to be printed in great numbers, these impressive vernacular translations were initially produced for high-ranking, even royal patrons, with expansive areas left in reserve for lavish miniatures, sometimes never added.