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Italians and others: some quattrocento views of nationality and the church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Diana M. Webb
Diana M. Webb*
Affiliation:
University of London King’s College
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Extract

In his excellent study of medieval Italian society, Hyde makes a thought-provoking comparison of ‘the Italians of the age of Dante’ with the humanists of a later generation. The former he sees as distinguished by ‘a sense of continuity with the past and with other parts of the Catholic world’ from the humanists who ‘concentrated on what was close at hand, digging deep rather than spreading wide, so that their world revolved around central Italy.’ It is not my intention here to dispute this assertion, but to use it to stimulate reflection on the nature of Italian self-awareness in the early renaissance period, in the light of a further contrast between Hyde’s two ages which he does not himself emphasise.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 18: Religion and National Identity , 1982 , pp. 243 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1982

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References

1 Hyde, [J.K], [Society and Politics in Medieval Italy] (London 1973) p 197 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Quoted by Trexler, R. C., ‘Rome on the eve of the Great Schism’, Speculum 42 (1967) p 490 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Lists of cardinals created by popes from Martin V to Alexander VI in Eubel, K., Hierarchia catholica medii aevi, 2 (Münster 1901) pp 3–36 Google Scholar. I have omitted from my calculations the consolatory creations of the erstwhile popes John XXIII and Felix V as cardinals. See also Hay, [D.], [The Church in Italy in the Fifteenth Century] (Cambridge 1977) pp 33-42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Hay p 42.

5 Ammanati, [J.], [Epistolae] (Milan 1521)Google Scholar. See the article by Pásztor, E., Dizionario biografico degli italiani, 2 (Rome 1960) pp 802-3Google Scholar.

6 Hyde p 2.

7 Dati, G., Istoria di Firenze ed Pratesi, L. (Norcia 1902) pp 59–60 Google Scholar.

8 Ammanati pp 12v-13v.

9 Ibid, on the first of four unnumbered leaves between p 208 and p 209. Reference will be made below to Aeneas Silvius’s treatise Germania or De moribus Cermaniae.

10 Ammanati pp 200v, 204, 209v-12.

11 Ibid p 172.

12 Ibid p 203. Ammanati’s Commentarii are printed with the Epistolae.

13 ASB Aprilis 1, pp 477-512.

14 Ranzanus, [Petrus], Epitome [Rerum Ungaricarum per indices descripta], Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum ed Schwandtner, J., 3 vols (Tournai 1765) pp 537-694Google Scholar. The fact that Ranzano mentions as bishop of Sirmio one Stephanus Crispus (Index 1, p 544), who was appointed to the see on 26 February 1490, while he seems unaware of the death of Matthias Corvinus in April of the same year, gives the best indication of the date at which the work was completed. Ranzano’s life of Margaret is contained in Index 15, pp 613-23, and is printed separately in ASB Januarii 2, pp 906-9.

15 [Pius II,], De Gestis [Concila Basiliensis Commentariorum libri II] ed Hay, D. and Smith, W. K. (Oxford 1967) p 16 Google Scholar. It is noteworthy that later (pp 202-3) Aeneas records that there were objections to the nomination of Livingstone as one of the three men to whom the business of naming the electors of a new pope was to be deputed: ‘For some people were murmuring that the abbot from Scotland seemed more like a Frenchman than a German, and that in so important a business a man not from an island but from the continent, who knew others, should have been chosen.’

16 [The] Commentaries [of Pius II], tr Gragg, F. A. and ed Gabel, L. C., Smith College Studies in History 22, 25, 30, 35, 43 (Northampton, Mass., 1937-57) pp 18–19 Google Scholar. See also the one-volume abridgement, Memoirs [of a Renaissance Pope] (London 1960) pp 33-5.

17 Ranzanus, , Epitome, Index 1, pp 537-55Google Scholar.

18 Bialostocki, J., The Art of the Renaissance in Eastern Europe, (London 1976)Google Scholar with full bibliography.

19 Der Briefwechsel [des Eneas Silvius Piccolomini] ed Wolkan, R., 2 vols, Fontes rerum Austriacarum 61-2, 67-8 (Vienna 1909-18) 1 pt i pp 548 Google Scholar, 550.

20 Ranzanus, , Epitome, Index 1 p 554 Google Scholar.

21 De Cestis pp 212-13.

22 For example, Commentaries pp 264-8, 510-11; Memoirs pp 140-3, 235-6.

23 Der Briefwechsel 2 p 188. See also Black, A., Council and Commune, (London 1979)p 40 Google Scholar.

24 Ammanati pp 219, 248.

25 Commentaries pp 94-100; Memoirs pp 80-4.

26 Ammanati p 22.

27 Webb, [D.], ‘Andrea Biglia [at Bologna, 1424-7: a humanist friar and the troubles of the church]’, BIHR 49 (1976) pp 41–59 Google Scholar, esp pp 49-53.

28 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS. H. 117 fols 4-5: ‘Precipue vero gens illa hispana, que si verum est quod referunt, pene temporibus nostris fidem iterum tanquam rudis et novella suscepit. Illud ferme ex historiis constat serius in Hispania fidem floruisse, semperque earn gentem facile omnium sectarum documenta suscepisse; seu quod tamquam in occidente a primo solis ortu remota, hoc est turn ab ipsius Grecie sedibus in qua post Ierosolimam ac cetera circa Palestinam loca velut in proximo cubili fides tutior atque uberior conquievit, tum ab huius nostris Italie ecclesiis. Nam et ipsi haud dubium suscipiende vere fidei paratam oportunitatem habuimus; neque hoc nostre artis aut virtutis sed prorsus gratie ac misericordie divine. Quid enim nos plus quam ceteri meruimus aut quid Greci preter ceteras gentes meruerant ut primi verbum predicationis audirent? Hic concilia non semel celebrata, hic scripture exposite, hic edite ac vulgate sapientum disputationes et sententie. Atqui si licet divino munere gloriari nescio cui unquam vel puntate fidei vel excellentia doctrine cessent Italia, sive sacrarum litterarum doctores requiris, sive prestantem martirum constantiam seu peritissimorum hominum prudentiam; semper hec pars Italie quantum ad fidem pertinet solers ac firma exstitit. Neque ego hec dico quod aut ex hac gloria laudes pacisci velim aut gratiam gratie comparan . . . deus anime mee testis est, de communi sanctorum in Christo conversatione loquor; et id nunc satis fidens dico, quod ipsa veritas loquitur atque omnes qui in earn intuentur concessuros et confessuros existimo . . . Utinam quidem edam si nos torpescamus ceteri floreant, nobis stultis, ceteri sint prudentes . . . Verumtamen dicam quod in mente habeo: posteaquam fides in orbem per apostolos disseminata est atque ita in nos verbum salutis pervenit nullam pene aut provinciam aut gentem fuisse que minus neque heresi neque scismate neque aliis sinistris ac perversis dogmatibus vexata sit. Ac si quid non nunquam vel impium vel male senciendum irrepsit et aliunde evertum est nee usque adeo simplicium mentibus pestis invaluit ut potuerit, vernate obsistente, vulgari. Et quidem sic decuit aream hanc quam primi ipsa apostolorum capita stravere aliquanto solidiorem fieri quo ab ceteris perfugium esset undeque per universum orbem Consilia peterentur. Quis vero fidelium nescit sedem románam summis pontificibus datam que ceteris iure auctoritate dignitate premineat?’

29 Webb, D., ‘The decline and fall of eastern Christianity: a fifteenth-century view’, BIHR 49 (1976) pp 198–216 Google Scholar, esp pp 206-12.

30 Ibid pp 213-15.

31 Webb, ‘Andrea Biglia’, pp 53-8.

32 Ibid pp 57-8; Muratori 19, col 43.

33 Webb, ‘Andrea Biglia’, pp 53, 55, 56, 58.

34 Antoninus, , Chronicorum Opus 3 vols (Lyons 1586) 3, pp 657-64Google Scholar.

35 Ammanati p 52v. Extracts from Castiglione’s life of Vincent are in ASB Aprilis 1, pp s 12-14.

36 Ranzanus, , Epitome, Index 15, p 618 Google Scholar.

37 In a communication to the Simposio Intemazionale Cateriniano-Bernardiniano, Siena 17-20 April 1980, J. Kloczowski discussed the cults of Catherine and Bernardino of Siena in Poland in and after the late fifteenth century.

38 Lewis, P. S., Later Medieval France (London 1968) p 14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Commentaries p 300; Memoirs pp 146-7.

40 Pius II, , Opera Omnia (Basle 1571) pp 1034-86Google Scholar; several times printed subsequently.

41 Ibid p 1050.

42 Ibid p 1061.

43 Ibid p 1070.

44 Ibid p 1075.

45 Ammanati p 64.

46 Ibid pp 59v-60.