Latin Historiography: A Survey, 1400-1600

Abstract

Flavio Biondo, writing in 1443 to Alfonso of Naples, explained his purpose in composing a history. All interested in the humanities realized, said he, that in twelve hundred years Italy had produced poets and orators, but practically no historians. Scholars had prepared translations from the Greek and philosophical treatises, yet their duty to history they had avoided, or touched upon in superficial fashion. This judgment was echoed by Bruni, Bonfini, Sabellico, and others, who regretted the lack of accounts of their medieval past.Church calendars had shaped the early recording of events. The language was Latin, the arrangement chronological, with no effort to group related occurrences or to indicate causation other than the will of God. The supernatural was readily accepted.

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