While marching to Rome to be crowned emperor, Ruprecht III of the Palatinate was defeated so badly at Brescia on October 21, 1401 by the Milanese that he returned to Germany. Gian Galeazzo defeated Bologna on June 26, 1402, and he attacked Florence; but he died of the plague on August 13. Gian was succeeded by his 14-year-old son Gian Maria Visconti. Filippo Maria was count of Pavia, and the illegitimate Gabriello Maria governed Crema and Pisa. People believed that the Duchess Caterina was Barbavara’s lover, and they appointed a new council. She summoned them, had one or two decapitated, and imprisoned the rest. Anarchy spread in the duchy of Milan, and she hanged malcontents. Gian Maria organized a Ghibelline council and made war against his mother Caterina. In 1404 she was captured and was reported to have been poisoned. The state was falling apart. Filippo Maria lost Pavia to the Beccaria; Facino Cane ruled Alessandria; Georgio Benzoni held Crema; the Colonni governed Trezzo; Cavalcabo ruled Cremona; Rusca was despot in Como; and Lodi was ruled by the son of a butcher. Generals captured cities and let their man plunder them. Lombardy was so ruined that Filippo was able to reconquer it fairly easily. Gian Maria was busy punishing rebels. Facino Cane extended his rule to Pavia on behalf of Filippo and became regent of Milan. Facino became ill in 1412. Gian Maria was killed by Milanese nobles on the way to church hours before Facino died.
Filippo Maria overcame a conspiracy, executed his brother’s assassins, and married Facino’s widow Beatrice Lascaris, who was twice his age. In 1418 he accused her of adultery and had her and the suspected lover executed. He put Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola in command, and he subdued Lombardy, expelling all the inhabitants of Piacenza. Genoa submitted in 1421 as did several cities the next year. However, at the St. Gothard pass 3,000 Swiss peasants defended their freedom against an invasion by 80,000 Italians. Venice and Florence also could not be conquered. Francesco Sforza led the Milanese army against Venice in 1431, and the next year he was betrothed to Filippo’s 6-year-old daughter Bianca, whom he married on October 24, 1441. Filippo Maria died suddenly of dysentery on August 13, 1447.
Filippo had lived in seclusion, and his death was kept secret. Some of the cabinet wanted to offer Milan to King Alfonso of Aragon and Naples, but others supported Sforza. Citizens elected four representatives from each of six wards to a supreme council. Spanish troops occupied Milan while Sforza’s army was camped outside the city. The small garrisons in the two large fortresses marched out, and the people demolished the strongholds. The new council decided to offer Milan to Sforza. Pavia quickly stopped resisting, and he gathered together condottieri. The Venetians retreated. Sforza sent a small fleet to attack Piacenza; the walls were breached, and troops plundered the city, removing 10,000 inhabitants to be sold as slaves. Sforza went against his agreement with Milan when he accepted the lordship over Tortona. He demanded and was given unlimited powers from the old senate. He went to war against Venice and burned their fleet on the Po River. On the field of Caravaggio he captured nearly the entire Venetian army with very few casualties. The mercenaries refrained from killing each other but did not spare those in towns. Sforza sent the Piccinini to besiege Lodi and advanced on Brescia himself.
Venice was trying to replace their general Micheletto Attendolo, and their senate sent secret offers to Sforza. He accepted and claimed it was self-defense because Milan was trying to take Pavia and Cremona from him. He promised Venice he would evacuate Brescia and Bergamo and renounce Ghiara d’Adda; Venice promised to help him conquer Visconti possessions. Milanese generals deserted to Sforza, and Montferrat made a deal so he could keep Alessandria. Sforza now demanded control over Milan, but Giorgio Lampugnani urged them to fight for their independence. Sforza used cannons to make a breach in the walls, and he was reinforced by Venice. In 1449 he took over Romagnano, Tortona, and Alessandria. Parma surrendered to him, and he tightened the siege of Milan. The Duchess got her brother, the Duke of Savoy, to fight for Milan, and the two Piccinini, who had been given free winter quarters by Sforza, in the spring went back to Milan’s side. Milan appointed Piccinino commander-in-chief, armed their militia of 20,000 citizens, and garrisoned neighboring fortresses. The little town of Vivegano defended itself with such determination that its capture was delayed long enough for the Milanese to harvest their wheat.
Sforza was losing generals and feared Alfonso might return; so he made peace at Brescia in September. He renounced his claim to Milan and was recognized as ruling Novara, Tortona, Alessandria, Pavia, Piacenza, Parma, and Cremona. However, he refused to ratify the treaty, and in the winter his army fought both Milan and Venice before they could join. People in Milan were starving, and an insurrection began on February 26, 1450. With no allies nearby, the Milanese decided to accept Sforza as the legitimate successor of the Visconti. He quickly supplied them with food, and all the strong places surrendered. The Venetians withdrew across the Adda. The Milanese chose building a fortress over billeting soldiers, and Sforza established his tyranny. Venice, Savoy, Montferrat, and Naples formed an alliance, and Florence accepted an alliance with Sforza to balance Italy. The two armies finally met in November 1452, but it was so foggy that little fighting occurred. The war dragged on until the spring of 1454 when peace was made at Lodi; Venice got Bergamo and Brescia, and Sforza kept Ghiara d’Adda.
Michele Steno was elected doge on December 1, 1400. Venetians felt much relief after Gian Galeazzo died of fever on August 13, 1402. Venice turned against Francesco Novello when the Duchess of Milan offered them Vicenza and Verona. Novello rejected an ultimatum to withdraw and mutilated the face of a Venetian herald. Offended Venice conquered Padua on November 4, 1404. The Carraresi father and son were imprisoned and were executed on January 17, 1405. This war was reported to have cost Venice two million ducats.
Although Pope Gregory XII was a Venetian, in 1409 Venice voted to support the end of the schism by recognizing Pope Alexander V instead. That year Venice bought back its territory in Dalmatia from King Ladislas of Naples and Hungary for 100,000 florins. King Sigismund regained the throne of Hungary and sent an army of 20,000 men led by Pippo Spano of Florence into Friuli. Feltre and Belluno surrendered. Sigismund was elected emperor and appointed Brunero della Scala as an imperial vicar to govern. Venice conscripted an army that stopped the Hungarian advance in 1411, and the next year Venice’s forces led by Pandolfo Malatesta and Nicolo Barbarigo defeated Pippo at Motta in Friuli. In 1413 they agreed on a five-year truce.
Doge Michele Steno died on December 26, 1413, and Tommaso Mocenigo was elected. Francesco Foscari negotiated a treaty of friendship with the new Sultan Mehmet I. Relations were peaceful until the spring of 1416 when Turkish ships, which were sent to punish the Duke of Naxos for attacking Turkish shipping, also attacked Venetian merchant ships. Fighting broke out with a war squadron led by Pietro Loredan, and he won a punishing victory over the Turks, taking 1,100 prisoners. At the end of the truce in 1418 Sigismund sent a force to invade Friuli. The Patriarch of Aquileia allied with the Hungarians fighting for Dalmatia. Tristano Savorgnan of Friuli defended his homeland, attacked the Patriarch, and helped Venice regain Sacile, Feltre, and Belluno. His father had been driven out of Undine by Hungarians, and in 1420 Tristano besieged the city. The Patriarch fled to Gorizia, and Undine reinstated Savorgnan. In the peace treaty Venice gained all of Friuli except Aquileia, San Vito, and San Daniele. Venice thus doubled its territory in Italy, extending it to the Alps in the northeast.
Francesco Foscari favored a military alliance with Florence against Milan, but Doge Mocenigo persuaded his council to keep the peace. While dying he told the Signoria that in his nine years they had reduced their debt caused by wars with Padua, Verona, and Vicenza from ten million ducats to six million. He advised them to avoid unjust wars because God would not support them. He warned that if Foscari became doge, Venice would be at war constantly, destroying their honor, reputation, and prosperity.
Francesco Foscari was elected to succeed this prophetic doge on April 16, 1423. That year the Venetian proveditors Niccolo Zorzi and Santo Venier annexed Thessalonica; but in March 1430 Sultan Murad besieged the city, and the Turks sacked it and forced about 7,000 inhabitants into slavery. Venice signed a treaty in September and promised not to try to recapture Thessalonica while the Sultan agreed not to interfere with the Venetians south and west of the island of Tenedos.
Venice hired the condottiere Francesco Bussone of Carmagnola, who had been fighting for Milan and had even married Antonia Visconti. After being appointed governor of Genoa in 1422, he felt ignored and went to Milan in 1424; but Filippo Maria refused to see him. So Carmagnola went to Venice in February 1425. One year later he was appointed commander-in-chief of Venice’s army with a salary of 1,000 ducats per month. In 1426 Foscari involved Venice in a war against Milan that lasted for the next 21 years. Although Carmagnola often took time off for health treatments, he managed to force Filippo Maria to surrender Brescia and the Bresciano. He lost the trading base at Casalmaggiore to Milan’s army while taking a cure; but he defeated the Milanese army led by Carlo Malatesta at Macalo on October 11, 1427, taking 8,000 soldiers prisoners after a “battle” in which not one man was killed. Many of them had previously fought for Carmagnola, and as condottieri often did, he kept their arms and released them without ransoms. Also he ignored the opportunity to advance on Cremona.
Discussions at Ferrara led to a peace treaty on April 19, 1428. Carmagnola resigned the following January but negotiated an even more lucrative contract. He continued to meet with Filippo Maria often, though he dutifully reported every meeting to the Venetians. On March 11, 1430 the nobleman Andrea Contarini wounded Doge Foscari in an assassination attempt in revenge for an election he had lost; he was hanged. In August 1430 the Senate promised to make Carmagnola duke of Milan if he conquered the city. Facing the top generals Niccola Piccinino and Francesco Sforza, 1,600 of his men were captured in a battle. In 1431 a Venetian fleet was attacked in the Po River and lost 28 galleys and 42 transports while 2,500 men were killed. Carmagnola was on the wrong bank and could not defend them. He was summoned to Venice and arrested. After being tortured, Carmagnola was convicted of treason and was beheaded on May 5, 1432.
Venice made a treaty with Emperor Sigismund in August 1435, and he appointed Doge Foscari imperial vicar; two years later he agreed to invest Venice with the lands they had conquered. Pope Eugene IV was also a Venetian. He tried to dissolve the Council of Basel and called for a new assembly at Ferrara. On his way to the meeting the Byzantine emperor John VIII and Constantinople’s Patriarch Joseph II visited Venice with great pomp in February 1438. After the Milanese army attacked Brescia in the fall, Venice hired the condottiere known as Gattamelata. In June 1439 Venice turned to an even greater condottiere and hired Francesco Sforza, who also had fought for Filippo Maria. He led the coalition of Venice, Florence, and Genoa and was also promised the dukedom if he captured Milan or Cremona or Mantua. On November 19, 1439 he and Gattamelata drove the Milanese out of Verona. Sforza also forced the Milanese to abandon their siege of Brescia in July 1440. However, in 1441 Sforza was reconciled with Filippo Maria, and on October 25 he married Bianca Maria in Cremona.
After Filippo Maria Visconti died on August 13, 1447, Lodi and Piacenza tried to free themselves from Milanese domination and turned to Venice. In November the Milanese army led by Sforza defeated the Venetians at Piacenza. He defeated the Venetians again in July 1448 at Casalmaggiore, where the commander Andrea Querini destroyed the Po River fleet to prevent the enemy from taking the ships. Then in September near Caravaggio 12,500 cavalry fought on each side, but Micheletto Attendolo’s Venetian infantry were outnumbered two-to-one by Sforza’s foot-soldiers. The expenses of such battles caused a financial crisis in Venice. The estimo tax on wealth was levied thirteen times in 1448 alone. Milan and Venice finally made peace at Lodi on April 9, 1454.
In November 1452 a Venetian ship was hit by a cannonball and sunk in the Bosphorus, and Sultan Mehmet II had the captain and crew put to death. In February 1453 the Venetian Senate received a letter from Girolano Minotto, the bailo in Constantinople, urgently requesting a relief force. They voted to send fifteen galleys but did not send them until the money was raised to pay for them. Constantinople was under siege by the Sultan’s army of 80,000 men. Before the Venetian ships arrived, on May 29 the Turks broke into Constantinople. Many Venetians were killed in the fighting. Minotto, his son, and seven other prominent Venetians were beheaded. In order to protect its commercial empire Venice began negotiating with Sultan Mehmet, and an agreement was reached in 1454.
Milan’s despot Gian Galeazzo arranged for France to send a vicar in 1396, and Genoa remained under French domination until 1411. After two years under the Marquis of Montferrat, the republic of Genoa was re-established in 1413. Tommaso di Campofregoso became doge in 1415, and except for two brief intervals he governed until 1444. He paid Genoa’s debt of 60,000 florins with his own money and was aided by five capable brothers. In 1420 Alfonso V of Aragon conquered most of Corsica. To pay for the war Genoa sold the port of Leghorn to Florence for 100,000 florins in 1421. Genoa became involved in another war against Alfonso in 1435 when he was trying to conquer Naples. Genoa sent a fleet to relieve Gaeta, defeated the Catalans, and captured Alfonso. Duke Filippo Maria of Milan ordered them to send the King to him. They did so, but their envoys refused to accept him as their king. The Genoese revolted and once again re-established their republic with revised laws. They sent embassies to fellow independent states of Florence and Venice to oppose the tyrannical duke of Milan. Genoa had difficulty finding a doge to replace Tommaso and offered it to him again in 1450; but he pleaded old age, and it was given to another Fregoso.
In 1404 Florence sent its army that captured the citadel of Pisa in August 1405. The Pisans refused to negotiate; but eventually when they were on the verge of starvation, a second Pietro Gambacorta secretly negotiated for Florentine citizenship, some freeholds and fortified places, and 50,000 florins. Then he opened the gates at night, and the Florentine army marched into Pisa. The new governor Capponi sent the Gambacorti and two hundred leading citizens to Florence as hostages, and in the next half century many of Pisa’s prominent citizens emigrated.
Milan’s Gian Galeazzo Visconti began invading Umbria and Tuscany in 1390, and the war against Florence went on for twelve years during which he conquered Perugia, Siena, and Pisa. The Milanese had encircled Florence by June 1402, but Gian Galeazzo suddenly died of disease, saving Florence. In the summer of 1405 Florence bribed the deposed Gabriele Maria of Pisa, and then they besieged the city and starved them into submission by October 9, 1406. King Ladislas of Naples tried to bribe Florence in January 1411 by giving them the town of Cortona, but after a few months it was fighting against the aggressive Ladislas. Florence was drawn into the war until Ladislas died on August 6, 1414. Pisa was having trouble because the mouth of the Arno River was clogged with silt. Genoa had taken over the nearby port of Livorno, but in 1421 the Florentine merchants purchased Livorno. By that year Giovanni de Bicci de’ Medici had risen to the highest office of gonfalonier of justice. In 1422 Florence was drawn into a war of defense against the expansion by Duke Filippo Maria of Milan which went on for several years. Florence was losing until it made an alliance with Venice in 1426. In a peace agreement in April 1428 Florence regained the territory it had lost while Venice expanded its boundary to the west. The treasury was exhausted, and in 1427 the catasto law had been passed requiring every citizen to register their valuable possessions. Then a ten-percent tax was imposed on their wealth. Drawing revenue from those who could afford it made it a more socially just tax.
Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici died on February 20, 1429, and Cosimo Medici became head of the family. People wanted war against Lucca, and he went with the tide. However, by attacking Lucca, Florence provoked Milan again, and Florence’s unreliable condottieri were defeated by the Milanese army. The Lucchese war was concluded by a treaty signed on May 10, 1433. The leader Niccolo da Uzzano had just died and was replaced by Rinaldo degli Albizzi. On September 7 he had Cosimo arrested in the palace of the priors, and two days later an assembly gave the balia power to two hundred men. On September 29 they banished Cosimo, his brother Lorenzo, and a few Medicean partisans. Exactly one year later the balia decreed Cosimo’s recall, and a few days later they banished Rinaldo and eighty of his Albizzi followers. Cosimo left Venice escorted by three hundred Venetian soldiers and returned triumphantly to Florence on October 5, 1434. He was elected Gonfalonier for two months and would be the primary leader in Florence for the next thirty years. Florence was at war with Milan again for two years, but Florence defeated Milan in February 1437 at Barga. When Florence attack Lucca again in 1438, Milan continued the war. In 1440 Rinaldo and other exiles persuaded Duke Filippo Maria of Milan to attack Florence, but the Florentine forces defeated them at Anghiari on June 29. Rinaldo died two years later. Cosimo became a friend of Milan’s Francesco Sforza in 1435 and eventually his ally against more powerful Venice.
The architect Brunelleschi completed the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore; it had been started in 1298, and it was consecrated on March 25, 1436. The next year Cosimo began rebuilding the San Marco monastery. An important Church council moved from Ferrara to Florence in January 1439, and on July 5 they decided to be united with the Greek Orthodox Church. As the Turks advanced against the Byzantine empire, Greek scholars fled to the West. George Gemistos Plethon came to Florence, and Cosimo financed a Platonic academy that educated Marsilio Ficino in Greek. Cosimo founded the first public library in Europe in 1444, and it was a model for the Vatican library that was organized thirty years later. Milan’s Filippo Visconti provoked another general war in Italy in 1446 by allying with Pope Eugene IV and King Alfonso of Naples against Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Bologna. In the war in 1452 when Florence was opposed to Venice and Naples, Cosimo weakened his enemies by calling in their debts. By 1453 Cosimo had built up the net worth of the Medici family to about a half million sterling.
In 1395 Siena submitted to Milan, and in 1399 they turned the city over to its duke Gian Galeazzo Visconti. He was ambitious to become king of Italy, but he died of illness in 1402. The next year the Dodicini tried to take over the government, but they were defeated and excluded forever from the government. Siena gained its independence by 1404.
In 1401 the wealthy Giovanni Bentivoglio gained control of Bologna, but on June 26, 1402 he was defeated and killed at the battle of Casalecchio by the Visconti. That year the growing power of Gian Galeazzo came to an end with his death on September 3, relieving the Papal State and the Guelf alliance. The papal legate Baldassare Cossa in Romagna skillfully managed to bring Bologna under direct rule by the Church along with Perugia in November 1403 and with Assisi. After Boniface died on October 1, 1404, the Neapolitan Cosimo Migliorati was elected to be Pope Innocent VII. His weak regime was dominated by Neapolitans while the legate Baldassare Cossa formed an alliance with Florentine bankers and the Este of Ferrara and brought back Faenza and Forli under the Church. Innocent VII died on November 6, 1406, and the cardinals elected the Venetian Angelo Correr to be Pope Gregory XII. He agreed to meet Benedict XIII at Savona in 1407 and did not try to defend his temporal power. The next year Ladislas with his Neapolitan troops occupied Rome and much of the Papal State, accepting the signoria in Perugia. Gregory granted much territory to his brother and nephews in fee.
A Church Council met at Pisa. Pope Gregory XII was a refugee at Rimini, and Pope Benedict XIII was secluded at Perpignan. Yet the Council at Pisa was well attended by 24 cardinals, 4 patriarchs, 10 archbishops, 79 bishops and 116 representatives of other bishops, 128 abbots and priors plus 200 other representatives of abbots, 300 doctors of theology and canon law, and 109 representatives of cathedral and college chapters. Also present were the heads of the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Augustinians, Knights of St. John, Teutonic Order, and the kings of England, France, Poland, and Cyprus. On June 5, 1409 they tried to end the schism by deposing both Gregory XII and Benedict XIII of Avignon. Three weeks later they elected a Cretan to be Pope Alexander V. Scotland and Spain remained loyal to Benedict, and Naples and some of central Europe continued obedience to Gregory; but most Christians supported Alexander. When he died on May 3, 1410, the cardinals at Pisa elected the legate Baldassare Cossa to be Pope John XXIII.
Pope John XXIII controlled Rome and collected taxes to pay mercenaries, but Bologna revolted from the Church on May 11, 1411. Louis II of Anjou helped John defeat Ladislas at Roccasecca on May 14. John summoned a council to Rome in April 1412, but it was sparsely attended. They ordered Wyclif’s writing burned and adjourned on February 10, 1413. Ladislas had recognized John as pope in June 1412 and signed a treaty with him. Bologna returned to papal rule in August. However, King Ladislas came into conflict with John again and drove him out of Rome on June 8, 1413, sacking the city. The Pope fled to Florence and retained control over Bologna. Ladislas held Rome until he became ill in 1414 and went back to Naples to die.
Sigismund was elected emperor in July 1411, and he announced a council at Constance on October 30, 1413. He and Pope John XXIII met at Lodi in November about ending the schism, and John added his seal to the call on December 9. John went to the council at Constance in October 1414, and they deposed him on May 29, 1415. Gregory XII abdicated on July 4. The condottieri wielded much power. Paolo Orsini plundered Rome in November 1415, but he was murdered the next year. Bologna rebelled again in January 1416 and revived its communal autonomy. In the chaos Braccio da Montone of Perugia became the strongest leader in the Papal State, and he defeated and captured Carlo Malatesta on July 12. Braccio occupied Rome in June 1417 and besieged the legate Isolani in Castel Sant’Angelo. However, Muzio Attendolo Sforza got out of prison, marched on Rome, and forced Braccio to leave the city.
Cardinal Oddo Colonna was elected pope at Constance on November 11, 1417, and he chose the name Martin V. He entered Italy a year later but resided in Florence from February 1419 to September 1420 while Braccio da Montone was in Rome. Muzio Sforza marched against the condottiere Braccio on behalf of the papacy but was defeated and confined to Viterbo. Martin and his allies made peace with Braccio on February 26, 1420. One month before that, Antongaleazzo Bentivoglio with the help of Braccio had taken over Bologna, but Martin was able to raise money and call on the tyrant of Romagna along with Braccio. The Bologna revolt collapsed in July, and Martin established a papal government. In 1422 Pope Martin sent the Franciscan Anthony Massanus to Constantinople with nine articles for a proposed union of the eastern and western churches. In the summer of 1428 the Canetoli faction captured the legate Louis Aleman and took over Bologna. Bishop Niccolo Albergati escaped disguised as a monk. Martin kept Bologna isolated and sent another legate, but he was driven out by rioting in April 1430. Pope Martin V died on February 20, 1431.
The Guelf Gabriele Condulmer was elected to be Pope Eugene IV on March 3, 1431, but the Colonna refused to turn over Martin V’s treasure. Prince Antonio Colonna of Salerno attacked Rome and was repulsed, beginning a war that lasted fourteen years. The Pope hired the Neapolitan general Jacopo Caldora; but when he came to Rome, he decided to fight for the Colonna instead. Eugene made an alliance with Florence; but after the peace of Ferrara in 1433 Filippo Maria Visconti sent Milanese condottieri against the Papal State. Sigismund left the Council of Basel in 1431 to visit Italy, and Eugene crowned him emperor in Rome on May 31, 1433. Pope Eugene recognized the Council as the highest authority on January 30, 1434. He sent the humanist Biondo Flavio to negotiate with Alessandro Sforza, and they signed a treaty on March 21, granting rich provinces to Sforza, who promised to be the papal standard-bearer for life. Niccolo Fortebraccio was attacking Rome, and Sforza defeated him at Tivoli on May 17; but the war-weary Romans supported Fortebraccio and the Visconti’s Niccolo Piccinino against Sforza and the Pope, who fled dressed as a monk in a boat on the Tiber.
Giovanni Vitelleschi was appointed papal governor of Bologna and Romagna in 1434. After Alessandro Sforza defeated and killed Fortebraccio, Vitelleschi entered Rome in October and terrorized the area, murdering or executing two powerful magnate families, the da Varano of Camerino and the Trinci of Foligno. In 1437 Pope Eugene sent an army led by Cardinal Vitelleschi to support the Angevin cause in the kingdom of Naples; but the army fell apart, and Vitelleschi abandoned them in 1438. That year Annibale Bentivoglio led a successful revolt in Bologna against the Church. He ruled most of the time until he was assassinated on June 24, 1445 with the connivance of Pope Eugene.
On January 8, 1438 Pope Eugene IV convened the council at Ferrara, and it moved to Florence in early 1439. Seven hundred Greeks attended, including Bishop Bessarion of Nice, Archbishop Isidore of Kiev, and Archbishop Mark Eugenicus of Ephesus. They were looking for support against the invading Turks. Only Mark of Ephesus refused to sign the articles of agreement on July 5; but when the Greeks returned to Constantinople, the agreement was rejected with contempt. Isidore was held in a convent for two years before he escaped and went to Rome. The Council of Basel deposed Eugene as a heretic on June 25. Vitelleschi became archbishop of Florence, and in Rome he was appointed to subdue Bologna and Romagna; but in the spring of 1440 Vitelleschi was arrested at Castel Sant’Angelo, wounded, and died a few days later. The papal-Florentine alliance defeated Piccinino’s army at Anghiari on June 29. Venice was also an ally of the Pope and occupied Ravenna. In the spring of 1443 Eugene recognized Alfonso V of Aragon as the ruler of Naples in recognition of his papal rights over the fief, and Alfonso ceded Terracina and Benevento to the Pope. In May 1445 Eugene joined the Visconti in an alliance against Alessandro Sforza. By July 1446 Sforza was confined to the town of Iesi, and Ancona had returned to papal obedience.
Pope Eugene died on February 27, 1447, and one week later Tommaso Parentucelli of Sarzana was elected to be Pope Nicholas V. That year Sante Bentivoglio made a treaty with Pope Nicholas, and he governed Bologna until his death in 1463. A Jubilee Year was celebrated in 1450 in Rome, and according to Aeneas Sylvius 40,000 people went from church to church each day. On one occasion more than two hundred people were trampled to death or drowned in the Tiber. On March 18, 1452 Nicholas crowned Friedrich III emperor, the last German to receive that honor. Nicholas sent Isidore as legate to Constantinople with two hundred troops, and in December 1452 he announced that the Greek and Latin communions were uniting. Nicholas sent only ten papal galleys in April 1453, and they were too late and too little to stop the Islamic conquest of the Eastern capital. Pope Nicholas V was a great scholar and patron of the arts and literature, heralding the beginning of a renaissance.
Martin ruled Sicily from 1392 and as a Spanish general put down an uprising in Sardinia on June 30, 1409, but he died there one month later. Some Sicilian barons profited from this war. Aragon’s King Marti ruled Sicily for one year until he died in 1410. Cabrera defied the regency of Queen Bianca, and Sicily suffered under factions. Citizens in Messina supported Queen Bianca and occupied the royal castles at Catania and Syracuse. Pope John XXII claimed to be the feudal overlord and proclaimed King Ladislas of Naples sovereign over Sicily. However, Palermo supported Cabrera, and the Taormina parliament was boycotted. Fernando became king of Aragon in 1412 and also claimed Sicily. For the next four centuries Sicily would be ruled by viceroys, and Fernando’s son Juan de Peñafiel was the first. Aragon’s king Alfonso V (r. 1414-58) also claimed Sicily. He established a school of Greek at Messina and a university in Catania.
King Louis II of Naples decided to go back to Provence, and in 1406 he gained Taranto by marrying the dowager princess Mary of Taranto. Pope Alexander V of Avignon urged Louis II to conquer Naples, and in 1409 he liberated Rome from the occupation by Ladislas, whom he defeated again at Roccasecca in 1411. However, Louis could not take Naples away from Ladislas and returned to Provence again. Ladislas made peace with Pope John XXIII on June 14, 1412 and was invested with the Neapolitan crown. In 1413 Ladislas invaded the Papal State and sacked Rome. He became ill and went back to Naples, where he died on August 6, 1414.
Ladislas was succeeded by his sister Giovanna (Joanna) II. She was a widow and was in love with the page Pandolfello Alopo before she married Jacques de la Marque in 1415. He kept her confined in the Castel Nuovo and had Alopo tortured and killed. When she attended a feast, her subjects were shocked at her appearance and escorted her to the Castel Capuano, imprisoning her husband. Giovanna then took up with Sergianni Caracciolo. In 1418 Jacques went back to France, and Giovanna II was crowned on October 19, 1419. When she refused to support the papal army, Pope Martin V turned to Louis III of Anjou, who invaded Campania. The Pope summoned the ambassadors to Florence and tried to mediate, but Giovanna offered Alfonso V of Aragon the throne of Naples. He entered Naples in July 1421, but in May 1423 Alfonso had Sergianni arrested and besieged Giovanna in the Castel Capuano. She called on Muzio Sforza, who drove Alfonso into the Castel Nuovo. When Alfonso’s Sicilian fleet arrived, Giovanna and Sergianni escaped to Aversa. She met Louis, named him her heir, and renounced her offer to Alfonso. On January 3, 1424 Sforza drowned while trying to save a soldier. His son Francesco Sforza came to Aversa, and Giovanna confirmed him in his father’s honors.
Alfonso went back to Aragon in 1424, and Giovanna returned to Naples. Pope Martin made his nephew Antonio duke of Aquila. Giovanna liked Louis and fell out with Sergianni, who become jealous. The Duchess of Sessa hated Sergianni and had him murdered. The Queen provoked a war between the Sanseverini and the Prince of Taranto and sent Louis against Taranto, resulting in the death of Louis in November 1434. Giovanna died on February 2, 1435 and willed her kingdom to René, the last Angevin king of Naples.
René was supported by the Neapolitans. In 1435 Milan’s Filippo Maria sent a Genoese fleet that helped them defeat and capture Alfonso, who was sent to Milan. Alfonso persuaded Filippo Maria that they should drive the French out of Naples. After seven more years of war Alfonso captured Naples in June 1442, and René fled to Provence. Alfonso triumphantly entered Naples in February 1443, and he made a treaty with Pope Eugene on July 6. The general collecta tax was replaced by a hearth tax, which the barons were supposed to pay for the serfs but which fell on the communes. Alfonso V preferred Naples to his kingdom of Aragon and remained in Italy until his death in 1458.
Pier Paolo Vergerio (1370-1444) studied grammar at Padua and dialectic in Florence. He began teaching dialectic and went on to study physics and medicine at Bologna and law at the University of Padua. He was influenced by Petrarca and Salutati and was taught by Giovanni Malpaghini. In late 1390 or 1391 Vergerio gave a Ciceronian oration to persuade Francesco Carrara to withdraw his condottiere Bartolomeo Cermisone, who was still in Padua and was serving Gian Galeazzo Visconti. Cermisone was officially recalled in January 1392. Like Salutati, Vergerio vindicated Cicero, and in 1394 he wrote a reply to Petrarca’s letter to Cicero in Hades. He favored a republic, but he wrote biographies of the Carrara despots in his Vitae Principium Carrarensium. In his fragment De Monarchia Vergerio argued that more than one ruler tended to cause injustice and abuse of the weak as the strong strive for power. He wrote the Life of Francesco Petrarca before returning to Florence, where he studied Greek 1398-1400. Salutati and Vergerio were among the first to read Petrarca’s epic poem Africa about Scipio, and it was edited by Vergerio.
In 1404 while Francesco Novello da Carrara stopped paying his scholars in order to fund military defense, Vergerio’s teacher Giovanni Conversino wrote the Discussion of the Preferable Way of Life, which is a dialog between a Paduan and a Venetian. He argued that whenever the people took power, peace and prosperity were destroyed. He especially praised King Lajos of Hungary for lifting his country from barbarism to civilization while he ruled 1342-82, but he also admired Niccolo II d’Este of Ferrara and Francesco II da Carrara. Conversino noted that King Robert of Naples, Jacopa da Carrara, Niccolo d’Este, and especially Gian Galeazzo Visconti were the patrons of the new humanistic learning. He found that the Venetians were so absorbed in commerce that they had little time for studies. In 1405 Venice took over Padua, and both Conversino and Vergerio were forced to leave.
In 1402 Vergerio wrote the influential humanist treatise on education, The Character and Studies Befitting a Free-born Youth (De ingenius moribus et liberalibus adulescentiae studiis liber) for young Ubertino da Carrara. He wrote that parents should instruct their children in the liberal arts so that they may learn virtue while they are young and impressionable. People desire wealth, glory, and pleasure, but they should seek to excel in what is greatest—virtue and the development of character. Humans should look to their own abilities and develop the intellect in order to be free. The well-constituted mind does not reject anyone but puts the best construction on what is said and done. In developing their character the youth should be discouraged from lying, which may become a bad habit. Vices change with age. The young burn with lust; the middle-aged are ambitious; and the elderly waste away in avarice. The young should be kept as pure as possible by preventing premature sexual activity, by keeping away from wine, by practicing religion, and by treating elders with profound respect.
Vergerio outlined a program of liberal studies worthy of the free that develops virtue and wisdom. Seeking profit and pleasure are for the illiberal. Excessive freedom may be too indulgent, but harsh discipline and criticism may sap intellectual vigor. A noble nature rises above hardships, and great wealth usually injures good minds more than poverty. Hercules took the path of virtue rather than pleasure. The pursuit of knowledge leads to wondrous pleasures in the mind and, when nurtured, bears fruit. Books extend human memories, and by reading one can learn from many generations and from far and wide. Knowledge of history aids the study of moral philosophy because of the examples. Philosophy is a liberal study because it makes one free. Developing eloquence helps one in civic life because one can persuade others. Rhetoric is the art of eloquence. Literature benefits the whole life for any kind of person. Disputation helps one learn science and opens up every kind of knowledge.
Music helps to harmonize the soul. Arithmetic and geometry are more exact sciences and discipline the mind. Studying nature opens the fields of science, and learning medicine is beneficial to bodily health. Being skilled in law is useful to the individual and the community, but Vergerio did not recommend the professional practice of law or medicine for the noble mind. The speculative intellect understands ideals and is good at metaphysics, and it complements the practical mind. Teaching is the best way to improve oneself if one continues to doubt and learn more. Vergerio goes on to discuss physical exercises and military training, and he concludes by urging Ubertino to strive with all his strength to develop his abilities; for if he does not, he will only have himself to blame.
Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444) was the son of a Guelf grain merchant in Arezzo. In 1384 Ghibelline exiles and the French army seized his father and him. Leonardo was held prisoner in a castle in a room with a portrait of Petrarca. He later wrote that this experience inflamed his passion to study his writings. His father died in 1386 and his mother in 1388. Bruni spent two years in the studio (university) of Florence and four years in its law school. He studied with Petrarca’s leading disciple Salutati. He learned Greek from Manuel Chrysoloras, and his 1401 translation of Basil’s Letter to Young Men was very popular.
About 1403 Bruni wrote Laudatio Florentinae urbis in imitation of the ancient panegyrics to Athens, especially the Panathenaicus by Aelius Aristides in the second century CE. Bruni believed that Florence was the greatest city on Earth and praised it for its architecture, cleanliness, moderate climate, large population, and prosperity. The city included farms, was self-sufficient, and was encircled by rings of protective walls. He believed that Florence had the right to have dominion over the entire world. Thus he prejudged that all its wars were just because they were to defend or recover its own territory. He bragged that Florence had the moral authority to settle all disputes and tried to do so by persuasion. He claimed that it never went back on a promise. When Florence was saved from aggression by Milan because of Gian Galeazzo’s death in 1402, he praised the city for crediting God with saving them. He believed that Florence was republican because they had checks and balances with nine magistrates, government by the majority with short terms of office, and two men elected from each of four quarters. Some issues were passed to the Council of the People and the Council of the Commune for a final decision. He admitted that the Florentine Guelfs were defeated by the Ghibellines at Montaperto in 1260; but Pope Urban IV sent them Charles of Anjou to gain revenge in 1265. Bruni claimed equality because the upper class was protected by its wealth, the lower class by the state, and all by fear of punishment. Florence also extended its protection to foreigners and even made them judges because of their impartiality.
In 1405 Salutati recommended Bruni, and he became secretary to Pope Innocent VII. After Salutati’s death Bruni completed his Dialogi ad Petrum Istram, discussing the controversial issues between Salutati and his disciples. In the first dialog at Salutati’s house the master criticizes his students for failing to study disputation. In the second dialog, written several years later, at the home of Roberto Rossi, Niccolo Niccoli argues against his previous position, which he says he had taken to spur discussion. They argue whether the works of Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio are as great as the classics, and in the second dialog they consider them favorably. Bruni also served Pope Gregory XII, but he left him in 1409 to be a secretary for the alternative Pope Alexander V. He also served his successor Pope John XXII until 1415 when the Council of Constance deposed all three popes. Then Bruni returned to Florence, where he spent the rest of his life, and he began writing his History of the Florentine People.
Bruni was a skilled Ciceronian stylist and translated into Latin four dialogs by Plato, several works by Aristotle, speeches by Demosthenes, and biographies by Plutarch. His manuscripts and printed editions of Aristotle’s Politics and Nicomachean Ethics were widely distributed. Instead of translating word for word, he tried to get the overall meaning of each sentence. In his Introduction to Moral Philosophy Bruni wrote that all the ancient philosophies, such as the Peripatetics, Stoics, and even the Epicureans as well as the Christians, emphasized that virtue is essential to the good life. About 1424 he wrote The Study of Literature for the Lady Battista Malatesta of Montefeltro, and he advised her to read only the best and most approved authors. Those he recommended included Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, Cyprian, Lactantius, Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, Basil, Cicero, Virgil, Livy, Sallust, Julius Caesar, Tacitus, and Curtius. He encouraged her to devote herself to divinity and moral philosophy and added the names of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Democritus, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Epicurus, Zeno, Varro, and Seneca. Among poets he also mentioned Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Euripides, Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius, and Boethius.
Bruni became chancellor of Florence in 1427 and served until his death in 1444. In a funeral oration, modeled on the oration by Pericles in Thucydides, for the Ferrarese general Nanni degli Strozzi in 1428 Bruni favored a republican form of government. Strozzi’s personal sacrifice may have prevented a victory by Milan. Bruni believed that the laws of Florence aimed at the liberty and equality of all citizens. Every man has the hope of winning public honor if his natural gifts and industry enable him to lead a respected life. Gregorio Dati had written a history of Florence during the period of its wars with Milan (1380-1402) in 1406, using a question-and-answer method to discuss pertinent issues. Bruni built on this research and completed his History of the Florentine People from the ancient Etruscans to 1402 in twelve books before he died. He also wrote biographies of Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio. Bruni argued that the free city state caused the rise and fall of culture. When the Roman republic was taken over by a series of emperors, their literature deteriorated. He was one of the first to separate antiquity from the modern period by calling the era in between the middle ages.
Bruni’s research on ancient Italy’s Etruscan past was used in his 1439 Greek treatise On the Florentine Polity in which he argued that educated citizens, rather than the masses, should make political decisions. He believed that human perfection can only be reached in a civic community, and therefore knowledge of the state is the most important branch of human learning. He found useful philosophies of government in Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero as well as in Christian thinkers. Bruni found that when citizens fulfilled their duty of bearing arms to defend Florence, it was more democratic than when they hired mercenaries, which shifted power to rich aristocrats. In his history he noted that Florence abolished military service for its citizens in 1351.
Vittorino was born at Feltre in 1378 and is known as Vittorino da Feltre. His father Bruto de’ Ramboldini was a poor notary. In 1396 Vittorino went to the University of Padua, where he could study all the arts. Petrarca’s library of ancient books was available there. Over the next twenty years Vittorino studied grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, moral philosophy, and mathematics. He taught grammar and was the most popular math teacher. In 1407 the respected Gasparino Barzizza came there to teach rhetoric, and he lectured on the orations and other works by Cicero. Vittorino lived with Barzizza for several years.
Guarino was born in Verona in 1370 and learned Latin from Giovanni da Ravenna. He studied with Vergerio at the University of Padua. In 1403 Guarino went to Constantinople, where he lived with the Greek scholar Manuel Chrysoloras for five years. He brought back more than fifty Greek manuscripts to Venice. Guarino could not find a post in Venice and went to Bologna, where he met Poggio Bracciolini and Bruni, who invited him to go to Florence. In 1411 Guarino published his translation of Plutarch’s influential treatise on education. The next year Florence re-opened its studio, and Guarino began teaching Greek there. Like Chrysoloras, Guarino had difficulty getting along with Niccolo de’ Niccoli.
When Francesco Barbaro (1390-1454) visited Florence in 1414, he persuaded Guarino to go with him to Venice. Barbaro was a Venetian humanist who had been tutored by Giovanni Conversini and Barzizza. Barbaro took Guarino into his house and learned Greek. In 1415 Barbaro wrote De re uxoria and dedicated a copy to the newly married Lorenzo de’ Medici and Ginevra Cavalcanti. Barbaro wrote that the purpose of marriage is to have children, and the wife’s duty is to educate them. The first book of De re uxoria discusses how to select a wife, and the second book explains her duties to her husband, household, and children. He expected the husband to give orders and the wife to obey. Wives are to love their husbands and practice the virtues of moderation and modesty, but they should be permitted to go out. She should teach the children. In 1419 Barbaro married and entered Venetian politics, rising to become the presiding officer over the Venetian Senate in 1449 and procurator of St. Mark in 1452, second only to the Doge.
Vittorino criticized Paduan students for celebrating Bacchus too often, and in 1415 he too moved to Venice. Guarino da Verona taught him Greek, and Vittorino’s mastery of Latin helped Guarino. In 1416 a plague drove them both back to Padua. Like Barzizza and Guarino, Vittorino took students into his house, and he became the most popular teacher. In 1418 Guarino married and returned to his native Verona, where he was elected professor of rhetoric. He fathered at least a dozen children who were well educated. After Barzizza went to Milan in 1422, Vittorino reluctantly accepted the chair of rhetoric at Padua. However, he disliked the temptations there, and in 1423 he resumed teaching in Venice. That year Marquis Gian Francesco Gonzaga invited Guarino to come to Mantua. He declined and recommended Vittorino. Gonzaga offered to pay Vittorino whatever he wanted, and he agreed on the understanding that the Marquis would not require him to do anything unworthy. He said he would serve the lord of Mantua as long as his life commanded respect.
In 1429 Marquis Niccolo d’Este invited Guarino to Ferrara to tutor his son Leonello for a stipend of 350 ducats, which was later increased. He was allowed to teach others too. When Leonello married in 1435, Guarino moved into a house and began taking in boarders. The next year the Ferrara Municipio appointed him professor of rhetoric. Guarino served as a translator of Greek at the Council of Ferrara that began in 1438 and then moved to Florence. Leonello d’Este became marquis of Ferrara and organized the school that Emperor Friedrich III proclaimed a university in 1442. Guarino also edited and translated Strabo’s Geography, and he published On the Art of Orthography. He is best known for his textbooks on Greek and Latin grammar. He used detailed methods for teaching grammar and the writings of historians and poets. His instruction of rhetoric was based mostly on works by Cicero and Quintilian. Virgil, Terence, and Lucan were the primary poets used. Guarino was a devoted Christian and also lectured on Augustine’s City of God and the works of Basil, Jerome, and Cyprian.
For 22 years Vittorino lived and taught in the Gonzaga palace until his death in 1446. A large garden-house in the castle park became the school and was called the “Joyful House.” The entire text of Cicero’s De Oratore had been discovered in 1422 at Lodi, and Vittorino began lecturing on Cicero’s rhetoric. He taught Gonzaga’s sons and daughters and the sons of his friends who included princes from northern Italy. Even the great scholars Guarino, Poggio, and Filelfo sent their sons to his school in Mantua, where there were fewer temptations. Sons of the wealthy paid high fees, but those without means paid nothing. Vittorino insisted on removing luxuries and distractions, and all his students were expected to lead a sober life. The Greek ideal of training the body included diet and exercise. He had as many as seventy students under his charge, but he did not use harsh punishments. Although he was quick-tempered, Vittorino practiced self-control. Corporal punishment was not used except as an alternative to expulsion. Vittorino respected the boys’ freedom and dignity, and he did not force the unwilling to learn.
Vittorino’s students ranged from age four or less up to 21. He devised games to help the youngest learn their letters. By the age of eleven they were writing their own compositions. Reading aloud was a regular exercise and accompanied meals. He emphasized grammar and rhetoric in both Latin and Greek. They were taught to recite and later to declaim. Students memorized classical writings, and some even learned all of Virgil’s Aeneid. Virgil was from Mantua. Latin was the common language of the educated in western Europe. Vittorino included geometry in mathematics and some algebra. Music was carefully supervised and was sometimes played at meals. He often lectured on Livy, and the biographies of Plutarch were also used to learn history and morals. Advanced and older students read the works of Plato and Aristotle. Vittorino had acquired essentially all the extant books by Plato. Logic was studied to improve thinking in definitions, classification, inference, and detection of fallacies. He used the Socratic method of asking questions to expose ignorance and arrogance.
At that time European universities emphasized theology, law, and medicine, but the schools of Vittorino and Guarino broadened the curriculum to include the humanities of literature, history, and philosophy. Vittorino taught seven or eight hours a day, lecturing to classes in the day and tutoring individuals in the evening. Physical exercises were important, and many games were played. Students were required to attend religious instruction and practice the ordinances of the Church. The Gonzagas helped Vittorino expand their palace library. Manuscript copiers were employed so that books could be shared. The Marquis did not allow his oldest son Ludovico to participate in military exercises as he did his second son Carlo. Ludovico’s resentment led to a breach, but Vittorino was able to reconcile the father with his oldest son. Vittorino’s health began declining in 1444, and he died in 1446. The scholar William Harrison Woodward called Vittorino the “first modern schoolmaster.” Ognibene da Lonigo revived the spirit of the school in 1449 for the next four years before moving on to Vicenza.
Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) grew up in Florence and studied grammar with Giovanni da Ravenna and Greek with Chrysoloras. He became skilled at copying manuscripts and became a notary and a secretary to Cardinal Maramori. Bracciolini spent most of his career serving in the papal curia at Rome. He served Pope John XXIII during the Council of Constance from 1414 to 1418. He found many valuable Latin manuscripts in the monasteries of France and Germany, including a complete text of Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria, one of the most important works on classical education. He went with the Bishop of Winchester to England but did not like it and returned to Rome in 1422. He was secretary and an advisor of Pope Martin V. At the age of 56 he married a young woman and wrote an apologetic tract On Marriage in Old Age. Over the years he wrote many moral essays including On Nobility, On the Inconstancy of Fortune, On the Misery of the Human Condition, and On the Infelicity of Princes. Poggio is also known for a collection of salacious anecdotes called Facetiae. In 1453 Poggio was appointed chancellor of Florence, and he wrote a history of Florence from the middle of the 14th century to the Peace of Lodi in 1453. He resigned in 1458 and died the next year. In his dialog “On Avarice” he condemned most churchmen of the day except San Bernardino da Siena. Bartolomeo da Montepulciano uses classical allusions to show that avarice is the worst human affliction. Then Antonio Loschi argues that the needs of society and government require capital to function well. However, the theologian Andrea of Constantinople condemns avarice as ruinous in many ways. He concludes by quoting Cicero.
For there is nothing so characteristic
of narrowness and smallness of soul as the love of riches,
and there is nothing more honorable and noble
than to be indifferent to money if one does not possess it,
and to devote it to beneficence and generosity
if one does possess it.1
Leon Battista Alberti was born in Genoa on February 18, 1404. He was one of two illegitimate sons of a wealthy Florentine merchant who became his heirs. His father was in exile, and for the first 24 years of his life they were vagabonds. His father taught him mathematics and sent him to be educated for four years by Barzizza at Padua and for seven years at the University of Bologna. When he was twenty, Alberti wrote the Latin comedy Philodoxus which some believed was by an ancient Roman. After earning his doctorate in canon law in 1428, he became secretary to Cardinal Albergati and traveled to France and Germany. In 1431 he went to Rome to be Cardinal Moulin’s secretary. The next year he became a secretary in the papal chancery, and in 1434 he went with Pope Eugene IV on a diplomatic mission to Florence, where he met Brunelleschi and Donatello. The Medici removed the ban against his family. Alberti was ordained and appointed to the priory of Gangalandi in Florence, and a patron hired him to revise the traditional lives of the saints in more elegant Latin. Although he continued a religious life, his own writings tended to be humanistic and secular. In 1435 Alberti wrote On Painting and explained the mathematical rules of perspective. He became a friend of the geographer Toscanelli and collaborated with him on astronomy. Alberti wrote a treatise on surveying and mapping, using Rome as an example.
Alberti wrote several dialogs on the ethical issues of the family between 1435 and 1444. Influenced by Cicero and Seneca, he believed that the family is the most important social unit. Parents are responsible for providing for their children and for educating them as well. He valued the vernacular and spoke Italian in his home. Games may be used, and one should have a spirit of inquiry. He believed that the father should be head of the house because women are more passive. Everyone’s duty is to pursue justice, the primary social value, and he emphasized the importance of working for the common good. He believed in the power of will and that much could be accomplished. After justice come truthfulness and self-control as the most important virtues. Humans are born to be useful to others, and virtuous action is important even in failure.
Ferrara’s Leonello d’Este asked Alberti to restore the work of the ancient architect Vitruvius, and Alberti became the architectural advisor of Pope Nicholas V. They initiated the reconstruction of St. Peter’s and the Vatican Palace. In 1452 Alberti published his influential Ten Books on Architecture. In the next twenty years he carried out various architectural projects. Alberti is an early example of the multi-talented universal person who flourished during the Renaissance.
Like Alberti, Matteo Palmieri (1406-75) was a Florentine who emphasized the importance of civic life. He wrote Della vita civile in 1429 and began circulating it in 1435. In a dialog Agnolo Pandolfini is the main speaker, and he discusses the virtues most desired to perfect citizens. The first of the four books is on the training and education of the child. The next two books discuss the moral life and the importance of justice and honesty in all human relations. The fourth book is about the motives of individual perfection and social responsibility. The youth learns to control his lower self, and this discipline is carried over into family and social life. To overcome poverty Palmieri urged the state to provide free schools for the sons of all the citizens. Palmieri also wrote a chronicle of world history and an account of how Florence captured Pisa in 1406.
Lorenzo Valla was born in Rome in 1407 and was the son of a lawyer in the papal court. After studying Latin grammar and rhetoric in Rome, he taught rhetoric at the University of Pavia from 1431 to 1433. He published On Pleasure and later changed the title to On the True Good, a dialog between a Stoic, an Epicurean, and a Christian. The Stoic philosopher represented by Bruni takes an ascetic position against nature and is refuted by the Epicurean who defends nature and utility. The Christian is named after Niccolo Niccoli but represents Valla and argues for a life of faith and virtue that will lead to happiness after death. Valla contended that orators are superior to philosophers because they are moral by appealing to the values of many people. He also criticized philosophers in his Dialectical Disputations. An orator is greater than a philosopher because he can persuade others of what is good. He reduced Aristotle’s nine categories to substance, quality, and action. His Elegantiae linguae latinae became a popular textbook of grammar and was printed in 1471.
For thirteen years Valla served Alfonso V of Aragon, who ruled Naples, as his secretary and historian. He wrote a history of the reign of Alfonso’s father, Fernando I (1412-16). He translated Aesop and the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides. In his dialog De professione religiosorum he criticized the monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, recommending devotion instead. Valla used his knowledge of Latin and its history to expose the “donation” of temporal power by Emperor Constantine to Pope Sylvester as a forgery. He also questioned whether the “Apostles’ Creed” was written by the original twelve apostles, and he applied his humanist philology to the Latin translation of the New Testament. In On Free Will he argued against the ideas in The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. Valla returned to Rome in 1448 and served as Pope Nicholas V’s secretary while teaching rhetoric.
In 1457 Dominicans invited Valla to give an encomium on Thomas Aquinas, but he advocated a return to the Fathers of the Church and criticized Thomas for his style and for being too interested in logic. Valla never married and had three children by his mistress in Rome. He died in 1457.
Gianozzo Manetti (1396-1459) was also a secretary to the humanist Pope Nicholas, and he became famous for his On the Dignity and Excellence of Man, which was completed by 1453 and answered The Misery of the Human Condition by Pope Innocent III.
Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini was born into a noble Sienese family in exile on October 18, 1405. After attending the University of Siena, he became Cardinal Domenico Capranica’s secretary and went with him to the Council of Basel in 1431. For the next six years he worked for clerics who wanted to make the Council superior to the Pope, and then he published his Commentary on the Council of Basel. In 1439 after Pope Eugene IV transferred the council to Ferrara, Piccolomini became secretary to the remnant Council’s chosen Pope Felix V.
In 1442 Germany’s King Friedrich III invited Piccolomini to Vienna and made him poet laureate and his secretary. His excommunication was lifted after he renounced Felix in 1445. He suffered a serious illness and gave up his dissolute life that had included fathering several illegitimate children. Piccolomini was ordained a priest in 1446. After Pope Eugene IV deposed two German archbishops who were imperial electors, Piccolomini successfully reconciled the Pope and the German princes. In 1447 Pope Nicholas V appointed him bishop of Trieste, and three years later he was transferred to Siena. In 1450 he negotiated Friedrich’s betrothal to the princess Eleonora of Portugal, and the next year he was sent as an envoy to the Hussite George of Podebrady. In 1452 Piccolomini went to Rome with Friedrich and attended his wedding and coronation as emperor by Pope Nicholas. Piccolomini became a cardinal and then Pope Pius II in 1458. He died in 1464.
Piccolomini wrote The Education for Boys in 1450 for ten-year-old Laszlo V of Hungary. He urged the pursuit of learning as the greatest way of acquiring virtue and suggested that a king needs this learning more than anyone. He addressed the boy and his teachers and discussed instructions for the body and the mind. He advised teachers to guide pupils with advice instead of blows. He cited several ancient authorities who opposed the custom of flogging students. He argued that blows can cause hatred that lasts into manhood. Nothing is worse than for students to hate their teachers, for they should love learning. He considered the intellect and reason most excellent. He warned the young king not to let riches spoil his virtue, and he recommended moderate eating and drinking. Piccolomini assumed that he was being instructed as a Christian with the Lord’s prayer, the Gospel of John, the creed, the ten commandments, and other teachings. He emphasized that he seek first the kingdom of God, and he asked what we must do to know God. He realized that his people would know Hungarian and Bohemian, but he urged them all to learn Latin also.
Piccolomini warned the prince against baseness in speech as well as the extremes of servility and arrogance. He must learn to express himself with distinction. Memory is a great aid to learning, and he suggested that he commit some verses or maxims to memory daily. Grammar is the basis of learning and literature. He described its four principles as logic, antiquity, authority, and custom. Logic uses analogy for comparison and etymology to understand the origin of words. Old words often have a majesty or religious attraction. Authority may come from orators, historians, poets, and philosophers as well as from Christians. Custom in speech is a kind of common currency. The ancients believed that reading should begin with Homer and Virgil. Piccolomini doubted that his student could learn Greek; but he argued that it would be useful in governing Hungary. He often cited Jerome as a useful source, and he recommended Cicero as the greatest orator. He urged students to read historians such as Livy and Sallust, but he warned that boys should not read Suetonius. He quoted Cicero who said, “History is the witness of the times, the light of truth, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.”2 He accepted the Pythagorean belief that music soothes and refreshes the mind. Geometry helps one to develop perceptive and reasoning abilities and should be added to arithmetic.
Philosophy seeks wisdom and so goes beyond the seven liberal arts to understand human and divine causes. In moral philosophy one should learn one’s duty to God, parents, elders, strangers, civil and military powers, fellow citizens, wife, friends, tenants, and slaves. Moral philosophy will also teach him to despise avarice and greed for money, behave modestly toward women, be affectionate to children and relatives, treat servants without cruelty, obey laws, control anger, despise pleasures, pity the oppressed, help the needy, reward the deserving, punish the guilty, and render to everyone what is due. Most of all, one should not be overjoyed by favorable fortune nor be sad because of misfortunes. Finally he recommended writings by Cicero, Seneca, Pliny, and Boethius, and he urged him to practice what he has been taught.
Notes
1. Cicero, De officiis 1.26.92 in On Avarice by Poggio Bracciolini tr. Benjamin G. Kohl and Elizabeth B. Welles in The Earthly Republic, p. 288.
2. Cicero, De or. 2.9.36 in The Education of Boys by Piccolomini 73 in Humanist Educational Treatises tr. Craig W. Kallendorf, p. 225.