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Bruni on Writing History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Gary Ianziti
Gary Ianziti*
Affiliation:
Queensland University of Technology
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Abstract

This article examines Leonardo Bruni's ideas on history writing, tracing their evolution from 1404 down to the latter half of 1443. It establishes that Bruni saw history writing as a textual activity closely related to, if not identical with, translation. The various implications of this discovery are explored in relation to several of Bruni's major historical works, including the Cicero novus (1415), the Commentarii de primo bello punico (1419), and the De bello italico (1441). The article concludes by showing how Bruni's views - in their final, extreme formulation - were challenged by his younger rival, Biondo Flavio, in the early 1440s.

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Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , Summer 1998 , pp. 367 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1998

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