Brunetto Latini
Encyclopedia
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
) was an Italian philosopher, scholar and statesman.
Life
Brunetto Latini was born in FlorenceFlorence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
in 1220 to a Tuscan noble family, the son of Buonaccorso Latini. He belonged to the Guelph
Guelphs and Ghibellines
The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in central and northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the split between these two parties was a particularly important aspect of the internal policy of the Italian city-states...
party. He was a notary and a man of learning, much respected by his fellow citizens and famed for his skill as an orator. He expounded the writings of Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
as guidance in public affairs.
He was of sufficient stature to be sent to Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
on an embassy to Alfonso el Sabio of Castile
Kingdom of Castile
Kingdom of Castile was one of the medieval kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. It emerged as a political autonomous entity in the 9th century. It was called County of Castile and was held in vassalage from the Kingdom of León. Its name comes from the host of castles constructed in the region...
to seek help for Florence against the Sienese; the mission was unsuccessful. On his return from Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, travelling along the Pass of Roncesvalles
Roncesvalles
Roncesvalles is a small village and municipality in Navarre, northern Spain. It is situated on the small river Urrobi at an altitude of some 900 metres in the Pyrenees, about 8 kilometres from the French frontier....
, he describes meeting a student from Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
astride a bay mule, who told him of the defeat of the Guelphs at the Battle of Montaperti
Battle of Montaperti
The Battle of Montaperti was fought on September 4, 1260, between Florence and Siena in Tuscany as part of the conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines...
. As a result, Latini was exiled from his native city. He took refuge for some years (1260–1266) in France working as a notary - in Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
, Arras
Arras
Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The historic centre of the Artois region, its local speech is characterized as a Picard dialect...
, Bar-sur-Aube
Bar-sur-Aube
Bar-sur-Aube is a commune of France in the Aube department, of which it is a sub-prefecture.-Population:The inhabitants of the commune are called Baralbains.-Culture:*Market every Saturday morning in the halls...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
In 1266 when the political situation allowed, he returned to Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
and for some twenty years held successive high offices. In 1273 he was appointed as Secretary to the Council of the Florentine Republic. In 1280 he contributed to the temporary reconciliation between the Guelph and Ghibelline parties, and in 1284 presided over the conference in which an attack on Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
was agreed. Finally, in 1287 he was elevated to the dignity of "prior" - one of 12 magistrates established through the constitution of 1282.
Giovanni Villani
Giovanni Villani
Giovanni Villani was an Italian banker, official, diplomat and chronicler from Florence who wrote the Nuova Cronica on the history of Florence. He was a leading statesman of Florence but later gained an unsavory reputation and served time in prison as a result of the bankruptcy of a trading and...
says that he was a great philosopher and a consummate master of rhetoric, not only in knowing how to speak well, but how to write well. He was the author of various works in prose and verse. He died in 1294, leaving a daughter Bianca Latini who had married Guido Di Filippo De' Castiglionchi in 1284. His tomb can be found in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Florence, to the left of the high altar.
Works
While in France, he wrote his ItalianItalian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
Tesoretto and in French his prose Li Livres dou Trésor, both summaries of the encyclopaedic knowledge of the day. The latter is regarded as the first encyclopedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
in a modern European language. The Italian 13th-century translation known as Tesoro was misattributed to Bono Giamboni. He also translated into Italian the Rettorica and three Orations by Cicero. The Italian translation of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
's Nicomachean Ethics is often misattributed to Brunetto Latini: it is a work of Taddeo Alderotti instead.
The Divine Comedy
Latini was Dante’s guardian after the death of his father. Early Dante commentators spoke of Brunetto as his teacher, as does Dante himself. Vittorio Imbriani took issue with that concept, saying Brunetto was far too busy a man to have been a mere teacher. Dante immortalized him in the Divine Comedy (see InfernoInferno (Dante)
Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through what is largely the medieval concept of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as...
, XV.82-87). It is also believed that there was an intellectual and affectionate bond between the elderly man and the young poet. It was perhaps Latini who induced Dante to read Cicero and Boethius, after the death of Beatrice
Beatrice Portinari
Beatrice "Bice" di Folco Portinari was a Florentine woman known as the muse of the poet Dante Alighieri. Beatrice was the principal inspiration for Dante's Vita Nuova, and also appears as his guide in the Divine Comedy in the last book, Paradiso, and in the last four canti of Purgatorio...
.
Many of the characters in Dante's Inferno are also mentioned in the legal and diplomatic documents Brunetto Latini wrote in Latin. There is a portrait of Latini in the Bargello in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, once reputed to be by Giotto, beside the one of Dante. In a wood engraving, Gustave Doré
Dore
Dore is a village in South Yorkshire, England. The village lies on a hill above the River Sheaf, and until 1934 was part of Derbyshire, but it is now a suburb of Sheffield. It is served by Dore and Totley railway station on the Hope Valley Line...
envisages the same scene from Inferno XV, 1861.
Canto XV
Dante places Latini within the third ring of the Seventh Circle with the SodomitesSodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources....
. Dante writes: "clerks and great and famous scholars, defiled in the world by one and the same sin" presumably the unspeakable one of sodomy
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
.
Dante's treatment of Latini, however, is commendatory beyond almost any other figure in the 'Inferno'. He calls the poet a radiance among men and speaks with gratitude of that sweet image, gentle and paternal, / you were to me in the world when hour by hour / you taught me how man makes himself eternal. The portrait is drawn with love, pathos and a dignity that is more compelling given the squalor of the punishment.
Latini asks first, humbly, if he may keep Dante company, letting his group run on. Dante offers to sit down with him but that would only increase Latini’s penalty; he and the other souls are doomed to keep moving aimlessly round the arena. Dante addresses him with the respectful pronoun voi; Latini uses the informal tu, as was no doubt their custom when they spoke together in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
.
Latini proceeds in obscure imagery to foretell Dante's future. The malicious ingrates who of old descended from Fiesole, will be his enemies. They are reputed blind, avaricious, envious and proud. Let him beware, he warns, not to be stained by them. Mark Musa
Mark Musa
Mark Musa is a graduate of Rutgers University , the University of Florence , and the Johns Hopkins University . He is a former Guggenheim fellow and the author of a number of books and articles...
also contends that there is sexual imagery indicative of the sin of sodomy in the interaction between Dante and Latini.
According to John D. Sinclair, Dante respected Latini immensely but nonetheless felt it necessary to place him with the sodomites
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
since, according to Sinclair, this sin of Latini's was well known in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
at the time. The squalor of Latini’s sin and penalty is nevertheless painful for Dante to visualise.
Other critics point to the fact that, outside of the Divine Comedy, Latini is nowhere else accused of sodomy or same-sex relations - and indeed he condemns it himself in the Tesoretto. Some therefore have suggested perhaps that Latini is placed in Canto XV for being violent against art and against his vernacular (Latini wrote in French instead of Florentine, which Dante championed as a literary language in De Vulgari Eloquentia
De vulgari eloquentia
De vulgari eloquentia is the title of an essay by Dante Alighieri, written in Latin and initially meant to consist of four books, but abandoned in the middle of the second. It was probably composed shortly after Dante went into exile; internal evidence points to a date between 1302 and 1305...
); or perhaps also to demonstrate and underline that even the greatest of men may be guilty of private sins. Neither objection rules out the possibility that he was guilty of the perceived sin himself; and given the setting and context, it is difficult to see that there can be any doubt, particularly following the discovery of a love poem, "S'eo son distertto inamoratamente" which Latini wrote to a man, Bondie Dietaiuti.
External links
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Brunetto Latini