Gary Ianziti

Bruni on Writing History

This article examines Leonardo Brunis 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 Brunis 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 Brunis views - in their final, extreme formulation - were challenged by his younger rival, Biondo Flavio, in the early 1440s.

A Humanist Historian and His Documents: Giovanni Simonetta, Secretary to the Sforzas

Q NE of the most promising trends in recent investigations into Quattrocento humanistic historiography has been the willingness to focus attention on the histories themselves, rather than on the sparse and often unsystematic theoretical statements formulated by the humanists in their prefaces, epistles and rhetorical treatises. By leaving aside for a moment what the humanists said about history, and concentrating on what they did, the latest efforts have exploded a number of idWes regues concerning the genesis, aims and forms of humanist historical writing in its various centers.1 Much work nevertheless remains to be done in this direction, especially in the area of textual analysis. One avenue of approach, the study of the sources, can often reveal how the humanistic page took shape, thus offering new insights into the premises and methodology of a given historian or group of historians. Previous investigations of this kind have generally been lim-

Historiography and its discontents: The Windschuttle gambit

This paper focuses on the allegations of malpractice launched against Australian historians by Keith Windschuttle in The Fabrication of Aboriginal History. The paper explores in particular Windschuttle’s interpretation of the practices and protocols of historical scholarship. It argues that this issue is crucial to assessing the validity of the claims advanced in The Fabrication. The paper’s immediate objective is twofold: to determine what scholarly standards Windschuttle is applying to the works he subjects to close scrutiny; and to ask whether the standards he applies are up-to-date, appropriate, and widely shared by the international community of practising historians. This article has been peer-reviewed.

Leonardo Bruni, the Medici, and the Florentine Histories

This article offers a new reading of Leonardo Brunis History of the Florentine People. It focuses on books VII-XII of this famous work, i.e. those produced and/or published after the Medici came to power in 1434. Careful study of key passages suggests that Bruni—often portrayed by modern historians as a republican firebrand—actually made a relatively smooth transition to the post-1434 climate of authoritarian rule. Indeed the evidence presented here reveals that Bruni deliberately (if subtly) manipulated his historical data in order to extol the Medici, who had meanwhile become the virtual patrons of his enterprise.

Poggio, Bruni e le Storie fiorentine

This essay establishes a comparison between the Florentine Histories of Poggio, and those written previously by Leonardo Bruni. The primary focus falls on those books where the two historians cover the same ground: that pertaining to the years 1350-1402. A textual analysis leads to a series of hypotheses regarding the originality of of Poggios historiography. The investigation shows that Poggio--despite sharing with his predecessor certain stylistic and methodological features--nevertheless succeeds in forging is own profile within the panorama of fifteenth-century Florentine historical writing. The purpose of his Histories seems in the end to be that of countering Bruni by exposing the tendentious and propagandistic nature of the latters work.