Visconti-Poggio correspondence 1438
Posted: 20 Jun 2023, 10:46
Filippo Maria Visconti sent Poggio Bracciolini a letter on 28 July 1438, to which Poggio replied on 15 September.
See Ann Mullaney and Massimo Zaggia, “Florence 1438: The Encomium of the Florentina Libertas Sent by Poggio Bracciolini to Duke Filippo Maria Visconti” (2020)
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/han ... /14329.pdf
One of the questions about the letter is why Visconti chose to write Poggio rather than the Florentine Signoria or the Chancellor, Leonardo Bruni. Mullaney and Zaggia cite 19th century Poggio biographer William Shepherd's opinion to suggest that Visconti "may have been hoping to make a separate pact with the Medici regime against Venice." (a peace between Florence and Milan had already been made on 30 March. On Shepherd, pages 328 to 333 are well worth reading for his insights https://books.google.fr/books?id=F40NAA ... &q&f=false )
This seems to be an adequate explanation of the ulterior motive for the letter. But I wonder about something else, which they do not address. In the opening paragraph of his letter, Visconti explains that the occasion of his letter is that through one of his confidants he heard that Poggio had said that there would be no one better than he, Visconti, to dispel a traditional anti-Florentine insult:
Would anyone care to speculate on who this confidant, who would have known Poggio well enough to understand the breach between him and Bruni regarding the Medici, might have been?
See Ann Mullaney and Massimo Zaggia, “Florence 1438: The Encomium of the Florentina Libertas Sent by Poggio Bracciolini to Duke Filippo Maria Visconti” (2020)
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/han ... /14329.pdf
One of the questions about the letter is why Visconti chose to write Poggio rather than the Florentine Signoria or the Chancellor, Leonardo Bruni. Mullaney and Zaggia cite 19th century Poggio biographer William Shepherd's opinion to suggest that Visconti "may have been hoping to make a separate pact with the Medici regime against Venice." (a peace between Florence and Milan had already been made on 30 March. On Shepherd, pages 328 to 333 are well worth reading for his insights https://books.google.fr/books?id=F40NAA ... &q&f=false )
This seems to be an adequate explanation of the ulterior motive for the letter. But I wonder about something else, which they do not address. In the opening paragraph of his letter, Visconti explains that the occasion of his letter is that through one of his confidants he heard that Poggio had said that there would be no one better than he, Visconti, to dispel a traditional anti-Florentine insult:
“From the report of certain of our confidants we have understood that, O most erudite man, our dearest friend, many times a complaint has been put to you, that Florentine citizens are named by some, with an impudent and rather brazen designation, blind; and you assert that the infamy of this label falsely attributed to the most esteemed and excellent men can be expunged by no one better than by our authority.” (Shepherd's astute observations on this paragraph (page 329): "It appears from the commencement of Filippo's letter, that some persons having stigamatized the Florentines as a short-sighted people, Poggio had remarked that the duke of Milan was well qualified to prove the contrary. The duke, affecting not to be sensible of the sarcasm couched in this observation, professed to be greatly flattered by the high opinion which Poggio appeared to entertain of his talents..." [Shepherd notes some examples of the proverbial slur about the Florentines' "blindness"; Mullaney and Zaggia note it as far back as Dante and Boccaccio, while Shepherd notes 15th and 16th century examples])Ex quorundam nostrorum relatione fidelium intelleximus, eruditissime vir, amice noster dilectissime, saepenumero te quaestum extitisse, Florentinos cives a nonnullis impudenti quadam et satis proterva appellatione caecos dici, eamque probatissimis et optimis viris falso inscripti nominis infamiam a nullo melius quam a dignitate nostra posse deleri.
Would anyone care to speculate on who this confidant, who would have known Poggio well enough to understand the breach between him and Bruni regarding the Medici, might have been?