Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), one of the greatest of Italian poets, was also the leading spirit in the Renaissance movement to revive ancient Roman language and literature. Just as Petrarch's Latin epic Africa imitated Virgil and his compendium On Illustrious Men was inspired by Livy, so Petrarch's four Invectives were intended to revive the eloquence of the great Roman orator Cicero. The Invectives are directed against the cultural idols of the Middle Ages--against scholastic philosophy and medicine and the dominance of French culture in general. They defend the value of literary culture against obscurantism and provide a clear statement of the values of Renaissance humanism. This volume provides a new critical edition of the Latin text based on the two autograph copies, and the first English translation of three of the four invectives. Table of Contents: Introduction Invectives against a Physician Invective against a Man of High Rank with No Knowledge or Virtue On His Own Ignorance and That of Many Others Invective against a Detractor of Italy Note on the Texts and Translations Notes to the Text Notes to the Translation Bibliography Index

This work covers the history of the text of the invectives of Sallust against Cicero and of Cicero against Sallust. Though these speeches seem unsophisticated to some, they are in fact of considerable importance. The question of the authenticity of both invectives, especially of the invective against Cicero, considered in the book diachronically, has long troubled scholars, commencing with Quintilian's quotation from the text as though it were authentic. This dispute continues down to our own time. In all probability, both invectives are a product of the rhetorical schools of Rome, as students at such schools might have been set the task of writing a speech against Cicero imitating Sallust, or of responding to Sallust in the style of Cicero. Thus, we possess a sample of rhetorical school exercises, preserved due to their similarities to the prototypes on which they were modelled. The work covers: the full manuscript tradition of the text and also the history of the changes which arose during its transmission, the history of the printed text and the text itself with an apparatus criticus and also a translation. This work should be of interest to classicists, philologists interested in the history of medieval and renaissance texts, and also to those erudite readers concerned with rhetorical style and the functioning of the rhetorical schools of Rome.

Dante's Comedy and the Ethics of Invective in Medieval Italy proposes a new approach to invective and comic poetry in Italy during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and opens the way for an innovative understanding of Dante’s masterpiece. The Middle Ages in Italy offer a wealth of vernacular poetic invectives—polemical verses aimed at blaming specific wrongdoings of an individual, group, city or institution— that are both understudied and rarely juxtaposed. No study has yet provided a scholarly examination of the connection between this medieval invective tradition, and its elements of humor, derision, and reprehension in Dante’s Comedy. This book argues that these comic texts are rooted in and actively engaged with the social, political, and religious conflicts of their time. Political invective has a dynamic ethical orientation that is mediated by a humor that disarms excessive hostility against its individual targets, providing an opening for dialogue. While exploring medieval comic poems by Rustico Filippi (from Florence), Cecco Angiolieri (from Siena), and Folgore da San Gimignano, this study unveils new biographical data about these poets retrieved from Italian state archives (most of these data are published here in English for the very first time), and ultimately shows what the medieval invective tradition can add to our understanding of Dante’s Comedy.

This work covers the history of the text of the invectives of Sallust against Cicero and of Cicero against Sallust. Though these speeches seem unsophisticated to some, they are in fact of considerable importance. The question of the authenticity of both invectives, especially of the invective against Cicero, considered in the book diachronically, has long troubled scholars, commencing with Quintilian’s quotation from the text as though it were authentic. This dispute continues down to our own time. In all probability, both invectives are a product of the rhetorical schools of Rome, as students at such schools might have been set the task of writing a speech against Cicero imitating Sallust, or of responding to Sallust in the style of Cicero. Thus, we possess a sample of rhetorical school exercises, preserved due to their similarities to the prototypes on which they were modelled. The work covers: the full manuscript tradition of the text and also the history of the changes which arose during its transmission, the history of the printed text and the text itself with an apparatus criticus and also a translation. This work should be of interest to classicists, philologists interested in the history of medieval and renaissance texts, and also to those erudite readers concerned with rhetorical style and the functioning of the rhetorical schools of Rome.