SOURCE: Fordyce, Cristiana. “The Pro Ligario: Volgarizzamento as a Means of Profit.” In The Politics of Transition in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, edited by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Luise von Flotow, and Daniel Russell, pp. 107-20. Ottawa, Canada: University of Ottawa Press, 2001.

[In the following essay, Fordyce studies Brunetto's updating of Cicero's Pro Ligario in his La Rettorica, a translation and commentary on Cicero's De Inventione.]

In 1267, the illustrious citizen Brunetto Latini was allowed to return to victorious Guelf Florence after six years of exile in France. The notary and chancellor, who had served the city until the defeat of his party, had continued his commitment to the city abroad by assisting rich Florentine merchants residing in France. Providing support to the mercantile class, the primary function of most lawyers, meant for Brunetto the backing of the commune not only economically, but politically. Before and after his exile, Brunetto was to Florence what Coluccio Salutati would be a century later: a rhetorician who made the art of letter-writing the most powerful weapon for the defense of the city.

Brunetto conceived rhetoric as a tool of persuasion, as an art that could not just convince the mind, but conquer the will.¹ He found the model for this kind of rhetoric in the classics, especially in Aristotle and Cicero, as his entire production aspired to educate his fellow citizens to a rhetoric of utilitas. Giovanni Villani, Florentine historiographer of the fourteenth century, noted how Brunetto Latini was “a worldly man, … the … master in refining the Florentine and in teaching them how to speak well, and how to guide and rule. …” (Wicksteed 1906, 312-13). Villani's comment highlights how Brunetto had actually accomplished his goal by revealing to his fellow citizens the secrets of a rhetoric capable of leading to an end. Essential to the civic and political life of the city, the ars rhetorica offered for Brunetto the solution to the problems of the city as well as of the individual.

Brunetto was aware that the practical knowledge of the merchants needed the support of eloquence since, as Cicero advised, eloquence and knowledge had to be joined in the same end for the resolution of a specific problem.² Moreover, eloquence appeared to Brunetto to be of paramount importance in a society that lived by the labors of its tongues and that had stemmed from a profit economy based on the art of persuasion. Brunetto, who had made his living from the power of rhetoric, was fully aware of the new supremacy of the word. In the Tesoretto, he advised his fellow citizens to speak properly and after having evaluated the circumstances, because:

Ché non ritorna mai
La parola ch'è detta
Sì come la saetta
Che vae e non ritorna.

(Latini 1981, vv. 1604-9)

But rhetorical ability could save one from any situation, since: “Chi ha la lingua adorna / poco gli basta” (Latini 1981, vv. 1610-11).

The word, like merchandise, had come to occupy a fundamental place in each aspect of the mercantile society, possessing no other value than what the individual was capable of negotiating for it. The word had become the means of estimation of every aspect of life. From the marketplace to the university, from good reputation to vituperium, the word had redefined means and ends. The new sin of the city was committed by means of language, as the word became the vehicle of defamation and vituperium, destroyers of that public image by now essential to any citizen of the new city.³

Dino Compagni, in the canzone Pregio, advised the Florentine bourgeoisie to care for their reputation by acknowledging the importance of common opinion and public estimation. Both in the Pregio and in his Chronicle, Dino revealed how the world of the individual and the world of the community, the world of the city and of its citizens, had become totally interwoven, forced into a continuous negotiation—a quest for agreement on the definition of the individual price.⁴

Sensitive to the importance of appearance and image, Brunetto constantly advised his audience to be aware of milieu and to cultivate buona usanza, the common approval, which would return in honor and public appreciation. Troppa sicuranza, which Brunetto associated with excessive self-confidence, on the other hand, was to be avoided, as it could damage one's reputation.

Ché troppa sicuranza
Fa contra buona usanza:
Sì ch' anzi che t'amendi
N'avrai danno e disonore.
Però che a tutte l'ore
Ti tieni a buona usanza,
Però ch'ella t'avanza
In pregio e in onore.

(Latini 1968, 13)⁵

The new kind of life and activities that awaited the mercantile class required not a rhetoric of elegance, but of utilitas, an art that could preserve good name, assure gain, make alliances and fortify individual will into a common want. With this idea of utile Brunetto translated his authors and, in Cicero's case, he used modern profit as the criterion to substitute for the classical elegantia. The practical message of Cicero's De Inventione did not escape Brunetto, who, in commenting on one of the master's passages, glossed: “Compagno è quelli che per alcuno patto so congiunge con un altro se sono fermi per eloquentia poi divengono fermissimi” (Latini 1968, 13). He demonstrated an absolute belief in a “performative” rhetoric, a rhetoric whose language does not describe or decorate, but deliver a true action (Austin 1961, 222-24).

Like Villani, Brunetto considered himself the educator of the new ruling class of Florence, his intellectual prowess committed to his audience in a clear, “ready to use” message.

Farò mio detto piano
Che pur un solo grano
Non fie che tu non sacce
Ma vo' …
Che tutto lo'ntende.

(Latini 1981, vv. 401-5)

The request of a clear ars dictandi had been presented to Brunetto by the same merchant audience, who claimed effectiveness and clarity. To notaries such as ser Brunetto, the Florentine Dino Compagni would, in fact, recommend:

Se buon pregio vole avere Notaro
in leal fama procacci sé vivere
Ed in chiaro rogare e' n bello scrivere.

(Compagni 1889, 221)

The new virtue that Brunetto proposed, especially through the lesson of Cicero, was the ability to master the art of eloquence, indispensable tool for the citizen of the commune seeking bona fama, the essential virtue to assure profit, and a relevant position on the political stage of the commune. Yet Brunetto was aware that if the ancient authors were an essential inspiration for the activities of his fellow bourgeois class, they did not need to represent a model of slavish imitation. If, on the one hand, for example, he proclaimed that Cicero was for him “sichura colonna sicchome fontana che non è istagna” (Bolton Holloway 1993, 259), on the other, he did not hesitate to point out the limits of the ancient master's teaching for the present times. In the Rettorica, a translation from the Ciceronian De Inventione, Brunetto was inspired by the most genuine mercantile spirit. As intermediary between the offer of his ancient masters and the demand of his bourgeois audience, Brunetto felt compelled to deliver to the latter exactly what it needed, tempering the original text when necessary. In the Rettorica, Brunetto stands up with his auctoritas, as the treatise is transformed into a sort of debate. Brunetto is more than a commentator as his voice becomes so strong to often overpower Cicero's own voice:

Ma in perciò che Tulio non dimostrò che sia rettorica ne' quale è il suo artefice, si vuole lo sponitore per piú chiarire l'opera dicere l'uno e l'altro. …

(Latini 1968, 4)

Brunetto, with his intense experience with the merchants and the chancery, knew that the scienza di dettare was as important as la scienza del dire and, with the intention to update the classic teaching to the needs of the thirteenth-century audience of the commune, he did not hesitate to integrate Cicero's lesson. Determined to gain the most benefit from the lesson of the ancient author, he placed his voice side by side with his master's without awe or hesitation, aware of the importance of his enterprise:

Rettorica è scienza di due maniere: una la quale insegna dire, e di questa tratta Tulio nel suo libro; l'altra insegna di dettare, e di questa … ne tratta lo sponitore.

(Latini 1968, 3)

From the classics, Brunetto intended to deliver to his audience not elegance of style, but utility of message. His effort of translation was for a public that needed the ancient authors but was without the linguistic means to engage them. In the Tesoretto, Brunetto offers the vernacularization as a means against obscurity and as a promise of clarity:

Ti parlerò per prosa …
Parlandoti in volgare,
che tu indenda e apare.

(Latini 1981, vv. 420-6)

Far from a linguistic exercise, translating represented for the Florentine rhetorician a contribution to the sake of the commune. In all the vernacular texts, in fact, the civic commitment of the translator is highlighted by a constant overlapping of the contemporary reality to the historical one. For example, Brunetto updates the Ciceronian terms with the equivalent of his communal life. He translates legatus as ambasciatore, patria as contrada, and respublica as comune; Brunetto's adaptations clearly show the prioritization of reality over textual accuracy (Segre 1991, 60). The reason is to be found in that Ciceronian utilitas, as the Florentine master never failed to underline the paramount importance of the practical implementation of the message. In the epilogue of his translation of the Ciceronian oration Pro Ligario, for example, Brunetto writes to Manetto, the addressee:

Ora io caro amicho assai satisfacto alle tue preghiere ma conviene che tu sii studioso leggitore ma via piú bene d'intendere perciò ch'elle ragioni sono molte et sono forti et soctili ma piú l'userai e piú t'avranno savere.

(Bolton Holloway 1993, 260)

Brunetto admired his models, but without submission to substance or form. When Brunetto translated Aristotle's Ethics, for example, he cared not just to update the lexicon, but bent the very essence of the message. He did not hesitate to reverse the Aristotelian order of the perfect form of government. Where Aristotle states that democracy should be condemned in favor of monarchy, Brunetto, loyal more to his civic commitment than to literary text, remarks that the political organization of the commune is above all forms of government (Bolton Holloway 1993, 8; 223).

If Brunetto stole the secrets of rhetoric and the concept of utile from Cicero, in Aristotle's Ethics he discovered new emphasis upon the active role of the mind; a secular dimension of an individual voluntas cooperating with the common good.⁶ In translating for his city Brunetto followed the example of his master Cicero not only in message, but in inspiration. Cicero considered “putting Greek Philosophy into Latin as a service to his country when political circumstances prevent him from serving it more directly” (Cicero 1991, 1). In the same way Brunetto began his activity of translation while in exile, at the time he attended the compilation of the Tresor.

In the Pro Ligario, one of the three Ciceronian orations translated around the time of the Rettorica,⁷ Brunetto certainly demonstrates to be inspired by the principle of utilitas of this latter work and by the desire to prove how rhetoric could be a means of control of the individual destiny.

The translation shows a strong faith in the power of the vernacular, a secure hand and an exceptional linguistic independence (Segre 1959, 132). Following his ancient master, who, despite the admiration for his Greek models, “argues at length against those who despise Latin Literature in comparison with Greek” (Cicero 1991, 1), Brunetto seems to use the Pro Ligario as proof of the strength of his native language. He follows precisely the Latin model when it seems to evoke the rhythm of the vernacular, but does not hesitate to shorten long sentences in more conceited structures when necessary.

The ancient text, by touching upon issues such as good name, civic rehabilitation and common good, was very appealing to the Florentine mercantile audience, who lived in a world in which profit stemmed directly from reputation. The Pro Ligario was certainly an important text for the demonstration of persuasive rhetoric, as the oration is a harangue in which Cicero pleads for the life and reputation of his friend and ex-political ally Ligario. Once a supporter of Pompey, Ligario chooses not to return to Rome after the civil war. Accused of treason, the Senate seeks from Caesar perpetual exile for Ligario and possibly the death penalty. The challenge that awaits Cicero is the fight, with the weapons of rhetoric, against the uncertain outcome of his friend's future.

Provided with almost no evidence of Ligario's innocence, the orator plays his harangue in two moments. In the first, emphasizing the contingency of fickle events, Cicero highlights the good will of the defendant, proving that Ligario had never intended to betray Caesar. In the second, he appeals to Caesar's clemency, claiming that mercy is what earned the dictator his good name and the utmost respect among Roman citizens.

The oration seems to be a powerful application of the teaching of the De Inventione. Brunetto, political exile and advogado, found affinity in this oration with the author and an excellent example of how rhetoric can attempt to control mala fortuna. But Brunetto was not a passive interpreter of the Roman author even in this passionate text. The vernacularization of the Pro Ligario is not fully “Ciceronian”: The voice of the translator and his rhetoric intervene in the most powerful passages to strengthen the persuasive discourse by making abundant use of syntactic explanations, interpolations and explanatory relative sentences. For example:

Quinto Ligario fue in Africa contro a te e contro al tuo onore.

(Latini 1959, 170)

[Q. Ligarium in Africa fuisse.]

Ma ritorno a me che fui in quelle medesime arme.

(Latini 1959, 174)

[Ad me revertar. Isdem in armis fui.]

Fa dunque di costui quello che hai fatto nuovamente del nobilissimo e nominatissimo Marcello … il quale tu hai restituito e perdonato del tutto.

(Latini 1959, 184)

[Fac igitur quod de homine nobilissimo et clarissimo fecisti nuper in curia.]

From the above examples, it is evident that Brunetto was not only trying to clarify the text, but emphasize the focal points of the petition, namely honor, reputation and vituperium. If on the one hand, the Italian does not appear as elegant and sharp as its model, on the other hand, Brunetto's text is undoubtedly tailored to an audience sensitive to issues of public image and common estimation.

Fama, we should recall, was particularly important to the merchant because it was essential to his trade. It was a merchant's job to guarantee with his own credibility the merchandise of the supplier to the client. Fama for the merchant was synonymous with profit. The merchant's fama and credibility were based on his good name, which was difficult to establish because, like the merchandise, it was based not on intrinsic value, but on price, which was relative and determined by the marketplace.

Brunetto's efforts in the Pro Ligario were meant to update Cicero's message to his audience's needs and teach his fellow citizens the secrets for the acquisition of this uncertain, but indispensable, common consent. It was illustrative, to this end, to translate the verb existimes with the market lexicon prezze:

Pensa la miseria loro e quella di Broco; ch'io so bene quanto tu il prezze.

(Latini 1959, 182)

[Animadverte horum omnium maestitiam … huius T. Brocchi de quo non dubito quid existimes.]

The new Italian text had to reflect the anxiety of the merchants in a simplified, fluid language. If Cicero presents Ligario's desire to return to his family in Rome as proof of political loyalty, Brunetto's translation, stressing burning desire and will, seems to suggest the image of merchants forced by their business to long periods of time in faraway, foreign markets, longing for their home. The elegant, but somewhat rigid, indefinite moods of the Latin models effectively render the spirit of the intention, but they seem to pale in comparison to the image of a boat that unfolds the sails toward home, as the absolute ablatives and gerunds are opened to the “personalized” mode of the indicative.⁸

Onde saputa di ciò la novella … perciò che Ligario aveva drizzato l'animo a casa e desiderava tornare dai suoi; ne' non sofferia di lasciarsi implicare da nessuna bisogna.

(Latini 1959, 175)

[Quo audito … cum ligarius domum spectans, ad suos redire cupiens, nullo se implicari negotio passus est.]

Brunetto is entirely focused on his communal milieu; contrada is such a powerful pressing reality to be more than appropriate to translate the Latin patria. Interestingly, the translator opts for this choice in a passage where Cicero accuses Ligario's adversaries of maliciously denying a recall from exile, a burning topic for the citizens of Florence, and especially for Brunetto, who had been himself banned from the city.

E io so bene Teverone, che la tua intenzione è di non procacciare altro se non che Ligario non sia in Roma … ne' dimori nella contrada.

(Latini 1959, 175)

[Nam quid agis aliud? Ut Romae ne sit, … ne sit in patria.]

Brunetto's translation is concerned, clearly, with the utilitas of the master text. His choice over elegantia is done with a full awareness of the richness and sophistication of the model. In the dedicatory of the Pro Ligario, Brunetto acknowledges:

Piacque al valoroso tuo cuore, … che la orazione che fece Marco tullio … io la dovessi volgaricare … la fatica è grande … per lo dectato che è alto, et in latino, e forte.

(Bolton Holloway 1993, 259)

The utility of the message overrules any concern. Brunetto has no hesitation, the translation must be in comune parlare as, for example, in the case of: “e così Ligario che schiferebbe …” (Latini 1959, 172). [Itaque Ligarius, qui … fugeret.]

The challenge of the translation consists in rendering the same power of the original so that the message is not lost. Brunetto succeeds both in the comprehension of the original text as well as in achieving an effective, explanatory translation.

Cicero's defense was articulated in the demonstration that Ligario's misfortune was caused by contingency, not by an ill intention to betray Caesar. Brunetto, comprehending Cicero's strategy, elects temporality as the core of his work. Temporality is stressed to an even higher degree in the translation than in the original text. Beginning with the prologue of the oration, we have signals of the importance of time, both explicitly admitted by the translator and rhetorically rendered in the text. Brunetto introduces Manetto, his wealthy banker friend of the Florentine community in exile in France, to the destiny of Ligario and requests that his friend pay attention to the specific contingencies of the events:

Voglio adunque che or te sia noto che Marco tullio allora consolo di roma fue da la parte di Pompeo. Et fu cacciato … Ma quando tullio fe' questa oratione, egli era tornato in roma, perché Julio cesare aveva mandato per lui. …

(Bolton Holloway 1993, 260)

The circumstances that lead to the event are more important than the event itself. The trial, the oration, even Ligario are secondary elements. The subjunctive of “che ti sia noto” prepares Manetto for the parts that will require him to be a studioso leggitore. The first two perfect verbs are joined paratactically and prepare the background for the real event, introduced hypotactically by quando. In this sentence the perfect is not the same as the previous ones: The “quando fe' questa orazione era tornato a Roma” makes clear that this perfect fe must be read with the value of a present tense. The accurate and sophisticated hypotactical web that Brunetto weaves in his introduction does not fail to catch Cicero's spirit. The translator intentionally emphasizes the pride of the pardoned orator, choosing to privilege the artist over the historical image who, in truth, had undoubtedly pleaded Caesar for mercy and forgiveness. Brunetto instead chooses to offer to the reader the image of a strong and powerful senator back from exile and to his glory for the sole decision of Caesar: “perché Julio aveva mandato per lui.” Brunetto is evidently interested in showing the free spirit of the republican Cicero, who loved Rome but did not bend to the tyrant. The sentence, caught between the ambiguity of an explicative and a causal, is all that Brunetto is willing to reveal about the historic reality of Cicero's life.

The prologue intends to guide the reader to the core of the translation: The will and desire of Ligario have always been with Caesar. While the events have led Caesar and the Senate to question Ligario's integrity, this is due to uncontrollable, unfavorable circumstances: Ligario is the victim of overwhelming events.

In the passage where Cicero stresses Ligario's desire to return to Rome, Brunetto makes sure not only to accentuate and expand Ligario's want, but uses the Latin sentences for a full display of the chain reaction of circumstances. He transforms the absolute ablative into a consequential onde and expands lexically with the noun novella with the purpose of strengthening the sense of causality. In addition, the imperfect and the simple past render not just the events, but the feelings of Ligario, pivotal to the demonstration of his good will. Cicero, in fact, has based his defense on the proof that his ill-fated friend was kept in the province of Africa if not by force, at least against his will. Brunetto, accordingly, resorts to a careful manipulation of tenses to express Ligario's impatience and resignation. The translator proceeds, changing rhythm and punctuation:

Dunque la sua andata [in Africa] non dee affendere l'animo tuo? Certo no; e la rimasa? Meno. Perciò che l'andata fue senza rea volontade, e la rimasa fue con onesta necessitade.

(Latini 1959, 172)

[Profectio certe animum tuum non debet offendere; num igitur remansio? Multo minus. Nam profectio voluntatem habuit non turpem, remansio necessitatem etiam honestatem.]

Ligario's accusation was based on the fact that he remained in Africa, a province hostile to Caesar and loyal to Pompey. Thus, Cicero founded the defense on the demonstration that Ligario's stay, being determined by unforeseeable circumstances such as the civil war, could not be considered as a sign of treason against Rome. In his defense the Roman orator separates the two periods of Ligario's service, namely when he was sent as ambassador to Africa and when he was elected governor of the province, from the third incriminating one, when the defendant resolved to stay in Africa after Pompey's defeat. In this instance, the translator succeeds in constructing a defense stronger than the Roman master's by equating the three moments of Ligario's service in Africa, hence “melting” the suspicious third moment into the previous, clearly innocent, ones. Brunetto immediately announces his new tripartite temporal structure, as he is eager to tie the loose end of that third time left “uncovered” by Cicero:

Dunque sono questi tre tempi senza peccato: uno, quand'elli andò nell'ambasceria, il secondo quando elli fu fatto signore del paese; il terzo quando elli rimase in Africa dopo la venuta di P. Varo. …

(Latini 1959, 172)

[Ergo haec duo tempora carent crimine; unum cum est legatus profectus, alterum cum a provincia praepositus Africa est. Tertium tempus quod post adventum Vari in restit.]

The rhetoric shown by Brunetto, if not elegant, certainly passionate, points to much more than a literary exercise. The three orations that Brunetto chose to translate were all political in character and vibrant with regard to the civil commitment to the city. They were lessons of rhetoric and lessons of life for the communal citizens of Florence. The rhetorical intensity displayed in the Pro Ligario was generated by his civic passion and personal experience. The content of the oration came from a topic dear to Brunetto, a man who had known the bitterness of exile and who loved his city. Especially in the passage that deals with Cicero's own engagement in the political scene, we observe in Brunetto a particularly explicit, “involved” translator. In his version of the Pro Ligario, not only two people are involved, Cicero and Ligario, but three: Brunetto is with them.

E io so bene Teverone, che la tua intenzione è di non procacciare altro se non che Ligario non sia in Roma, ch'elli stai fuori di suo albergo ch'elli non si possa raunare con li suoi cari fratelli, ne' meco … e ch'elli non viva con noi, … ne' dimori nella contrada.

(Latini 1959, 175)

[Nam quid agis aliud? Ut Romae ne sit, ut domo careat, ne cum optimis fratribus, … ne nobiscum vivat, … ne sit in patria.]

The intensity of Brunetto's translation in this passage appears to betray personal feelings, as the addition of “ne' mecum” seems to suggest. This passage, which as we noted above shows the updated lexicon of Brunetto's day, betrays concepts of liberality, forgiveness, civil community and family. Another example is offered in the passage where Ligario's brothers and their loyalty are used in the proof of loyalty to Caesar. The image has the structure of a synecdoche. If the other two brothers, who are in Rome and loyal to Caesar, are united and pray for the salvation of this third one left in Africa, and if it is true that Caesar trusts these two and that they trust Ligario, then Caesar must consider the third brother innocent as well. In fact, it is not admissible that this one is stained with a crime against not just Caesar, but at this point against his own brothers who are faithful to Caesar. The conclusion of such argumentation is crucial to the defense and rhetorically powerful:

O tu riterrai tre Ligari in Roma o tre ne distruggeri se ti piace colui di cacciare in bando.

(Latini 1959, 182)

[aut tres ligarii retinendi in civitate sunt aut tres ex civitate exterminandi.]

In both the aforementioned passages, Brunetto innovates with explicative forms: a relative sentence in the first case and a dubitative in the second. Brunetto also avoids the use of indefinite modes, preferring the definite ones, the active form of the verb, and the hypotactic subordination in passages that are crucial to the proof of Ligario's innocence: aveva drizzato, desiderava tornare, non sofferia, o tu ne distruggerai. The sentences are knotted in a hypotactic system of cause-effect as in a chain reaction where no event stands by itself but is determined by and determinant to others. This can be noted even at the level of lexicon in the last analyzed passage; in the verb distruggerai, Brunetto does not hesitate to place civil and biological death on the same level.

The translator does not alter the Latin text for pure linguistic experimentation. The message that inspires it is the only guideline for Brunetto. In the following passage, it is quite evident that he is aware which parts needed to be bent for emphasis.

Che dirò dei fratelli di Ligario? … chi non sa che gli animi di questi frati sono sí conspirati e gittati in una forma di un solo volere e di una fratellasca agguaglianza? … Appare dunque di voluntate tutti furono teco.

(Latini 1959, 182)

[Qui est, qui horum consensus conspiratem et paene conflatum in hac prope aequalitate fraterna noverit. … Voluntate igitur omnes tecum fuerunt.]

If the second part is a faithful translation, the first is modified by the translator. Preferring the personalization of the sentence, Brunetto assimilates the structure of the second part to the first. In his elaboration, conspirati e gittati in un solo volere stresses the power of individual will and the intention to unify diversified wants in one aspiration for the common good of Ligario and the Roman republic.

Brunetto's sensibility to the community of men is both Ciceronian and Aristotelian as he marks his translation with attention to and care for the individual as member of the humana societas. When urging Caesar to pardon Ligarius, Cicero stressed that the condemnation of a member of the community would damage the entire city. Brunetto powerfully underlines these moments as, for example: “Non pensare, Cesare che qui si tratti pur di una persona” (Latini 1959, 182). [Noli, Caesar putare de unius capite nos agere.] The passage is interesting both philologically and politically, summarizing the ethical ideal that inspired the entire work of Brunetto. The word persona, even if fails to render the sophistication of the original, powerfully succeeds in interpreting the message and, as in the previous passage, draws attention to the individual.

The human experience was an essential focus for Brunetto. Throughout his life he was passionate about the concerns, needs and aspirations of his fellow citizens, the men who, with their commerce and gains, had brought prosperity and new intellectual stimulation to the commune. It was these men who were striving to become persone, the agents of change, the actors in their own drama, to whom Brunetto addressed his civic and literary enterprise. Brunetto intended to open his knowledge and experience to those who needed them with his translations:

Ben conoscho che'l bene
Assai val meno, chi'l tene
Del tutto in se' celato
Che chuel ch'è palesato.

(Latini 1981, vv. 93-6)

Committed to the commune as chancellor, and to the bourgeoisie as a Guelf, Brunetto knew that the prowess of Florence was in the hands of the mercantile class, at once the author and offspring of the profit economy. The support to this class signified the support for their activities and the skills necessary to foster their gains for the good of Florence.

Even if not a merchant, Brunetto, educated by constant contact with the mercantile class and the communal political organization, felt the need to offer a rhetoric of action to those who were wise enough to understand and implement it. Rhetoric had become the occasion to challenge and control the outcome of fortuna. Through Brunetto, the new powerful citizen of Florence learned to be in the race for power: “colui che vince e non colui che perde.”

Notes

1. “… l'essenziale è persuadere, cioè scuotere l'animo perché l'auditore agisca secondo la convinzione che gli è stata trasmessa … la persuasione aggiunge qualcosa alla convinzione, nel senso che si impadronisce più. Totalmente dell'essere.” See Perelman (1979, 57, 59).

2. Rhetoric, for Brunetto, must always aim to a specific target: “Rettorica è scienza di bene dire sopra la causa proposta, cioè la quale noi sapremo ornatamente dire” (Latini 1968, 4). And

   Intendo che eloquenzia congiunta con ragione d'animo,

   cioè con sapienza, piú e agevolmente ae potuto … as hedificare cittadi … fare fermissime compagnie et a novare amicizie. …

   (Latini 1968, 11-13)

3. Casagrande (1987). See Introduction.

4. Compagni (1889, Book II); Compagni (1889, 214-224).

5. Brunetto does not recommend buona usanza for pure conformism. He would not hesitate to praise a conventionally unacceptable behavior if it could help to gain the benefits of honor and reputation. In the Tesoretto, Brunetto condemns the game of dice, but not when playing becomes necessary to uphold honor with friends and lords. See Latini (vv. 1426-1440).

6. In the Ethics, Brunetto translates a passage as follows:

   ciascuna arte ha un suo finale intendimento, lo quale drizza le sue operazioni. Adunque l'arte civile … è sovrana di tutte le altre arti. E la retorica è anche nobile, imperciò ch'ella ordina tutte l'altre che si contengono sotto di lei. … Adunque il bene che si seguita di queste scienze, sí è il bene dell'uomo.

   (Bolton Holloway 1993, 431)

7. Brunetto also translated Cicero's Pro Lege Deiotaro and Pro Marcello. See Le tre orazioni (1832).

8. The notion “fortuna maris” appeared for the first time with Brunetto: “Au tens d'inver, quand les tempestes et les orribles fortunes suelent sordre parmi la mer” and would become a well-established topos of mercantile literature throughout the fourteenth century (Bec 1967, 302).

Works Cited

Austin, John L. Philosophical Papers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961.

Baldwin, Charles S. Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1928.

Bec, Christian. Les marchands écrivains. Paris: La Haye, 1967.

Bolton Holloway, Julia. Twice-told Tales. Brunetto Latino and Dante Alighieri. New York: Peter Lang, 1993.

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